The Queen's Gambit
by Trials of Sin
Summary: Even after that strange, eventful day, after Kris and Susie escaped the dark world, a conflict Kris isn't aware of, keeps drawing him back into it. Each time, he either follows or is followed into it by someone else. Each time, that other person from hometown has baggage of their own that they can't escape from. Not even into magical worlds inside closets and dark rooms.
1. Without Guidance

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 01

So it Begins

* * *

"Are you certain it was him?"

"They couldn't have sealed the fountain without a human, and he is the only one in this town of yours. Yes, I am certain. It was him and the dragon from his class."

"Oh goodness..."

"However they found their way to the dark world, they did so together. We must separate them so that it doesn't happen again."

"Yes - yes I - I'll see what can be done."

* * *

Kris couldn't see. "Where...where am I? Hello...? Anyone...?" It was dark. He could feel nothing, he could see nothing. He expected to feel frosty air glide along his cheeks, but he didn't feel his cheeks either. "Is...is anybody there?"

Only slowly, he began hearing something other than his own inner voice. It started off completely silent, but more and more, he could hear a repetition of something. Sometimes, there was variation. "...and siman tov, up the hill and down the hill, test, test, one, two, three, the wheels on the bus..."

As soon as he realized that it was an actual voice, he shouted. Or at least he tried to. "Hello? Hello!"

"...oh, can you hear me?"

The endless, random ramblings had come to a stop. Who or whatever that was, Kris at last had its attention. "Yes!"

"At last, we are connected. We had some unexpected trouble."

"Where am I? It's cold, and I can't feel my..."

"At the moment, you are nowhere at all."

He was feeling more agitated by the lack of change in how much he knew about what happened, when suddenly his surroundings changed. He could finally see something. It was just that it wasn't anything specific. Just an endless, white-purplish blur that extended endlessly in every direction. "Don't leave me alone! Where am I?"

"This isn't important. What matters is the change."

"Change? What change."

"They are gone. I can't read them anywhere. And yet we are talking. The dog must have been lazy."

"Who? Talk to me! Give me some answers!" Something about all this was making him panic. He just wanted to get out of here.

"You are on your own it seems."

"On my...stop this! Where am I?" He was avoiding giving him clear answers.

"No need to worry. What matters is that they are gone. You are without guidance."

"Does...does that mean I can do what I want again?"

"Indeed. If you are up to the task. Tell me, when you are faced with a tough decision, will you be able to make it?" Kris thought about the answer. Perhaps it was his own fault for being too slow, but before he could, the voice went on. "Neither of us have a choice but to see for ourselves." Suddenly, Kris felt something scratching the side of his head. He tried to reach for it, but he couldn't. He couldn't feel his hand.

* * *

Then the scratching began to grow stronger. It penetrated the surface of his head and while it expanded across his body, filled him with painful jitters. Faster and faster, it went way beyond his head, until he could feel the pain in his arms, his legs, his chest, everywhere. And then, with a slam, a feeling as if he had fallen down a building and crashed against the pavement, it all ended.

Still with his heart racing from the shock, he slammed his eyes wide open and began breathing heavily. It was over. At least he thought so. But a quick look around had him calm down, as while the bed sheet was pushed away, he was still back in his room. And he was fine. His hands, his face, he could touch and feel everything. He got up. Asriel's alarm clock listed ten past seven. He had twenty more minutes before it would wake him up to go to school. Just enough to get some pie for breakfast.

The door to the bathroom was closed. And he could hear water running from behind, Mom was already awake and in the shower. Half the pie was already eaten. Nonetheless he cut himself a piece of it and sat down at the table. To think about the dream he had just had. He often had these nightmares. Usually, it would end the same way.

Being given options to create a 'vessel', only for it to be thrown away and him to be thrown back into his own, human 'vessel'. Something was different on the previous day though. He was looking at everything, sometimes staring and thinking about things he knew perfectly well, and talking to everyone he saw.

His choices were not his own. But now, he got up early enough, checking for the time was his choice, not looking at every single thing in his room was his choice, walking straight down the hallway and the stairs without inspecting the crayon box was his choice. He was free, he could do whatever he wanted. Cutting only as small a piece of the pie for himself to eat wasn't necessarily his choice, he did that to not draw his mother's ire.

The entire day was surreal to him. And all the more did everything after leaving the class room. Fantasy creatures, magic, suddenly pulling weaponry out of nowhere, the entire thing being chronically jumbled up as if he had just 'gone back' to repeat things from time to time, and in the end, they both 'woke up'. Especially the part about going on a magical adventure with Susie confused him, that entire part felt more like what he expected a drug trip to be like, than an actual series of events.

His first opportunity to clear his mind on what it was, came his way when his mother was done taking a shower and, dressed in a bath robe, got herself a leftover piece of the pie and sat down next to him at the round table. He was startled when she leaned in and planted a long, drawn-out kiss on the left side of his forehead. "Good morning. You seem up a lot sooner today."

Kris tried to laugh off the slight uncomfortable feeling. "I'm sorry you were worried yesterday. I didn't mean for that."

She began stroking his back with one hand while holding a big spoon of pie ready for herself with the other. "It is all right. If you made a friend, that is worth all the worries." So yesterday was an actual day that happened. "So how is this friend of yours? Is she nice?"

He smiled. "Yes. "

"It was irresponsible of Alphys to just let you wander off for so long. I will have a word with her over this."

He knew there was no point in arguing. Mom was right anyway. As always. For now, while he had time, he had to focus on the bits of the previous day that he was more willing to believe. When he was made to wander through town and talk to everyone. Absolutely everyone. And he came up with someone that might get him further on that. "So how's uncle Rudy been lately?"

Merely hearing that name immediately lowered the corners of his mother's mouth. Bringing him up startled her and she shifted away a little. "Oh my..ahem. Fine. he is recovering I believe. But you should know." She took a sip from her too strongly flavoured tea. "He called to thank me for sending you over. It was nice of you to surprise him."

Not long after that, Asriel's alarm clock went off. Kris quickly got up, ran upstairs and stopped it before grabbing new clothes, another set of his wide collection of mutually identical, green striped shirts and brown pairs of trousers and heading downstairs to take a quick shower in the bathroom, too.

When he came out, clean and with new clothes, Mom was already back in her dress and coming down the stairs to get ready to head to school. He only noticed on the way out, that in their rush on the previous day, they had forgotten his school bag in the car. A sudden, deeply uncomfortable thought, but a fleeting one, since everything was fine.

Holding hands as family always did - their family at least - they walked through the morning light of their comfortable town. On the way his mother made sure to remind him several times to apologize to Mrs. Alphys when she got to class.

He didn't talk back at her for repeating herself, but by the time she was at it for the fifth time, she must have noticed him getting annoyed, seeing as she stopped. Inside, with all the fellow students walking in and around, in front of everyone's eyes, she led him in by the hand and gave him his daily 'good luck at school' hug before moving on to prepare her own classes.

Only about half the class was there by the time he arrived. He only minimally greeted Berdly and Noelle, who were early and fully awake as always. He was mostly absorbed in his own thoughts on how to proceed.

His next step in tracing the steps of the previous day, was to ask Berdly and Noelle how their project was coming along. As usual, the bird grinned. "We got it done before class was over. You better get going this time. It's due tomorrow and you were lucky enough to survive Susie yesterday. I don't think she's going to help you at all."

He put on a smile, but he didn't answer. He didn't know how to feel about Berdly's comment about Susie being unwilling to help. On one hand, it somehow upset him, on the other, he couldn't blame him for thinking that way. He for himself actually felt a lot more confident now. And she would be the last missing piece. The one part of the previous day he really, really, really felt inclined not to believe that it happened. And to his positive surprise, before Jocks or Snowy, Susie appeared. And with a school bag, too.

Everyone else had their things neatly sorted out so that they had everything they needed for the day in their lockers, and as always, she took her seat right in front of him. She even greeted him and he greeted her back. He tried to not be too obvious about paying particular attention to her - and to stare at the pens and the block of paper he was sorting instead.

That was, until she turned around and very strongly, so much so that it was painful, pressed the tip of her index 'claw' into his right shoulder. First, he only raised his head slowly, then he quickly shifted to sit upright. Susie sat with her elbow on his desk and was pointing right at him and then herself with an evil grin that made him uneasy. She got a bit closer and began to whisper. "After classes?"

He preferred not to answer, he just smiled and nodded. With a smile that was, unlike most of the time, genuine. When he turned back around, he figured that this feeling wasn't uneasiness. He was excited. Quietly enough to not be heard, he couldn't suppress impatiently tapping his foot while waiting for Alphys to come. She was late. Which wasn't unusual, but somehow now more than on any other day, he really noticed it.

And when she at last came, she looked more like she was stumbling in. As always with a jacket that didn't quite fit and a tie that wasn't quite tied properly. She even gasped because she almost tripped on her way to her desk. "Good morning everyone."

"Good morning, Mrs. Alphys.", everyone replied in sync like grade schoolers.

"Y-you're all here!" She noticed it as well. "...and...actually in one piece." That part, she whispered to herself, but Kris could guess it was something like that. In a demonstrative manner, she reached into a bag of her own and placed a box full of chalk on the table. She learned from her mistake. Biology class went over with nothing unexpected happening. But for the very next subject, physics, the one they were about to start off with yesterday until that abruptly ended for him, it wasn't case.

"Oh, so-u-uhm. Right class." Alphys slapped her claws together in a known attempt to give herself some new confidence. "I'm - I'm afraid I've got some bad news. We're going to call your current projects short. You can hand in what you have if you want to..." As expected, Berdly and Noelle already had a neatly stapled-together pile of paper with all the results, how they got to them, and graphs to explain each problem laid out in great detail. Kris on the other hand, had nothing to show. And for a second or two, everyone was indeed staring at his desk.

"...but if you have nothing, that's okay, too. Just place them right here after class." Looking back, the choice of this person Ralsei spoke of in the dungeon, this 'player's, to use what little time he had left before going to bed early to start a conversation with EVERY SINGLE PERSON THEY COULD FIND was a bad decision and he really hoped this loss of control would never happen again.

Luckily for him, this hope would prove well-placed in the long run.

Then again, Susie didn't have anything either.

Alphys couldn't help but stare with a forced grin at all the upset students. "Sorry again for the inconvenience. Was a bit of a...surprising change of plans. But I already put together new papers for all of you." She pulled up another pile of sheets like she always did for group projects. On each one would be a list of problems you had to solve together with your partner, and the common result would be graded for both of you.

She went on while she walked from desk to desk to hand one to each student. "I'm going to need you to form new groups of two. Groups with partners other than your previous ones. We can't always work with the same people, right?"

Once done, she turned around to the class and was shrugging and forcing a smile onto herself. She was looking for approval and she got none. People didn't say anything, but you could feel it in the mood that filled the room. Even Kris slightly pressed at the back of Susie's chair to get her attention and see what she was thinking about it, and she just shrugged.

"O-okay. Why don't we just do it randomly?" She fumbled about with her bag again. Other teachers would have just either written scraps of paper with each student's name on them, or had the students write them, and then drawn all the names one by one. Mrs. Alphys on the other hand, for some reason, always had a little box of dice and a plastic cup with her and 'rolled' them instead, by assigning each one a number and then rolling the dice, loudly and again and again.

When her arduous exercise was finally done, she announced each name and had every pair of two form one group. He had to say, none of them really matched. All the pairs from before and from most of their assignments made sense in some way. They worked. However they did, Jockington and Catti did seem to hold up, but now Jockington was winding himself around one of Snowy's wings and Catti had to team up with Temmie's boiled egg. As for the four of them, Kris was teamed up with a now devastated blue bird, while Noelle got to look after Susie. Upon hearing it, very slowly, with terror in his eyes, Berdo turned around, with his lower beak hanging down.

Kris couldn't help but mimic Susie's previous shrug. Berdo snuck a glance at Noelle and then went back to glaring at Kris with his trembling index finger raised. Not even bothering to remove the tiny, loosely hanging feather that made his fingerpointing look a lot more awkward than it was supposed to. It all happened in a span of mere seconds, and as soon as he gave up and sighed, he opened his eyes and came along to sit at Kris' desk, with his smirky old face back to how it was supposed to be. "Hey there. Looks like it's the two of us now."

Kris maintained a slight smile, worried about what Berdly might read into it if he didn't, and agreed with his new colleague. Berdly on the other hand, placed his elbow on Kris' desk and shifted a little closer with his hand covering the other way and whispered. "But hey, on the flip side, you got rid of Susie, right?" Kris' smile was already vanishing.

"What even happened yesterday anyway? Got lost on the way to the supply closet? How does that happen? For hours?" He was beginning to put on this exaggerated smile that almost made his head look like it had a different shape and he had to catch his glasses to keep them from falling off. "Makes you wonder what you were even doing all this time."

On the outside, nothing about Kris' mannerisms changed. On the inside, he was now in overdrive. Assuming that either everything was true, or that they were on some weird substance-related trip, what excuse could he come up with to avoid Berdly bombarding him with innuendo for the rest of the year? "Uh..." he finally stammered. "...we didn't find any chalk, and then found out there was an empty classroom nobody is using."

At last, the smile was vanishing but he still had to look Berdly in those narrowing eyes. "Really?"

"Yes. With playing cards and a chess board, and a checkers board..."

Now the bird was raising his head and pointing at Kris with pistol hands. "Ah, now I get it. Wandering off and lazying about with board games all day. Yes, I can believe it. Sounds like something you two would do." He just raised a hand to fire a pistol hand at Berdly and take it down again to acknowledge he was right. This was in fact, the best thing he could say. He didn't believe the 'truth' himself. Not for a second. "Okay, I'm seeing how it is. Now let's take a look at what we got here."

The sheets were printed with more thin paper, which tricked them into believing it was one, when they were actually three. In fact, upon closer inspection, the new group assignment didn't only contain more than three times as many problems to solve, but they were much more difficult as well. At least one of them involved material they hadn't actually covered yet. And on top of it, they didn't have two days to complete it, but one.

Why was this sudden new paper so much more difficult than the previous ones? The one from before, he could sort of imagine completing with Susie if they sat down and did it. But with this one, other students were complaining from time to time and Berdly was clutching a pencil with his beak and twisting it, scraping pieces of wood off with little care. Even the two of them didn't really get anywhere with it, and when class was over, Kris was happy to think about something else.

And after that, and a few hours more, soon enough, the bells were ringing and their last class for today was over. With his things already packed, Kris almost immediately got up and went for the door. "Hey! Wait up!" Berdo was already calling after him, but Kris had little patience for him. "Where do you think you're going?" Susie, who had run past them, was now waiting for them in the middle of the busy hall.

She just plain told the bird: "To the supply closet."

She was very excited to go and led the two of them onwards down the hallway and into the one that led to the closet. Kris was excited as well, he just couldn't believe everything about travelling into a magical dark world. They were going to open the closet and it was just going to be a supply closet. "I can see where you're going.", the bird went on while still spurting after the two of them. "But why?"

Once they had passed most students and there wasn't anyone to really attentively listen in, she did turn around, but wound up stammering her answer. "Because there'll be a...well a...a thing! You just watch." Kris somehow felt skeptical about it. There wasn't going to be a 'thing', was there? With a proud grin, bearing her teeth, she marched up to the closet, grabbed both handles at once and pulled it wide open.

"Behold! The dark world!" And a mere half-second upon presenting it to him, her bravado was gone. "Oh wait, there's nothing there." What they had in front of them was just a supply closet, with boxes full of hygiene products, a few supplies for first aid, chalk, large crayons, and further down a lot of asymmetrical bottles of various detergents. The ground was full of pieces of fallen-down and broken off chalk. A feast for the kinds of people that liked to eat it. "No...there's nothing here."

Convinced that she was going off the deep end for good, Berdo folded up his arms and shook his head. "Of course there's nothing there." On the other side of it, but covered in shelves nailed over it, was a door that led to a corridor in the back.

That didn't stop Susie from kneeling down and scrambling around among those detergents and other cleaning utensils. "No, no, no, no, it was real! I could have sworn - Kris!"

She pointed right at him and he froze. She got up and came closer and closer until she loomed over him. A bit too close for comfort. "You remember it, too right? It must have been real."

He looked up at those jaws and stayed as not-panicked as he could. "I remember something. Why?"

"It couldn't have been a dream, it was way too...I made a friend in there. Little blue guy. What's his name?"

A little blue guy? Well for one, their recollection of what happened had a similarity right there. "Lancer?"

Immediately she stepped back and pointed at him. "See? It was real!"

He didn't seen quite convinced. Maybe she was just telling herself whatever answer he gave was correct. "Was there anyone else?"

At last, when he engaged her, she calmed down a bit. "Uh yeah, little guy in green. He was as much of a little wimp as you."

"And his name?"

"Ralsei!"

Berdly came around to place a hand on Kris' wrist to get his attention. "What kind of 'board games' were you playing exactly?"

"Hey! Where are you heading off to now?" Kris began wandering off, down the hallway, to the classroom they came out of when all this was over. After he was a bit ahead, he stopped and turned around and soon enough, all three of them were on their way to the abandoned class room. "Okay, good idea. They'll all be where we left them."

When they opened the door, while the light from outside did reveal a little bit, Kris immediately noticed how it was very impractically designed given how from either of the two doors that led to it, you had to walk straight through the entire room in the dark, just to get to the light switch on the other side. The room was untouched. Everything was the same as before.

Berdly couldn't help but stand in the middle of the mess on the floor and look at Susie with his head tilted. "So, what exactly am I supposed to see here?"

A little confused and at a loss for words, Susie looked all over all the boards, board game pieces and playing cards strewn across the floor and the shelves of the cupboard. Kris walked straight past most of it and picked up a little, worn plush animal that lay next to a joker card off the floor. It was made to look like a cat, or some other mammal, with arms and legs like a monster, and with a button sewn onto its face, possibly to replace its right eye.

"Now wait a minute!" When she saw Kris take an interest in him, she started paying attention to the plush, marched right his way and pulled it out of his hand. "I recognize that face, it's Seam!"

Another face and name she recognized just like he did. If this was a dream, they were both having an at least near-identical dream. "But if this is Seam...then..." She knelt down to pick up one of the playing cards. A two of hearts. And she remembered the heart-shaped soldiers Lancer threw at them when they were in the purple fields. And Seam and the heart cards were both on a purple carpet.

Slowly, she began tracing a route through the room, along the checkers board with all the pawns, building block pieces and playing cards that led up to the cupboard and wound up walking over to it. Inside, she picked up one of the three rules cards that were strewn around. "If that's Seam, then that was the field and this is Card Castle."

"Really now? 'Card Castle'?" Berdly placed both hands on his waist and looked over to his silent partner, expecting the same smug dismissal. Kris on the other hand, was curious to see what Susie would find.

"If this is the castle, then those are the floors and that means this..." She reached into the upper shelf within the cupboard, past the half-open door, grabbed what she found and put a few cards back. From an area still visible from outside, she had pulled out and kept a jack of Spades that lay on another box of cards. But from around the corner, she found something that immediately drew Kris' attention. "What the hell is that?"

His horns! The headband with those little pinkish, forward-bent devil horns he used to wear when he was smaller. "Those look like mine."

She looked up at him with disbelief. "Say what now?"

"I used to have horns like that. They were from a Halloween costume. See?" He took it right out of her hand and tried putting on the piece. It didn't quite fit any more. But upon looking at the inside of the headpiece that connected the horns, he could still see his name, written on with nigh irremovable marker with his mother's handwriting. Those weren't just any pair of horns like his. They WERE his. When he lost them, he looked all over for them and they never turned up. How did they get here?

When he looked back up from them, he saw two monsters staring him down with a very wide smile on both their faces. Berdly wasn't a bird, he was a bird monster. And his beak deformed to match all the mean-spirited smiles it could throughout every school day. And now was no exception. "Krissy, Krissy. You didn't wear those at school, did you?"

He froze. And didn't say a word. A similar smile crept up the dragon girl's jaws while she looked down at him with her head still raised. "I'd believe it in an instant." He was absolutely upset, but at the same time, he had no idea how to react to this. He thought she was changing yesterday, but on the first chance to humiliate him, she turned on him again. He thought she called him her friend, but if she turned on him so quickly, the notion felt hollow to him. He clenched one of his fists and knocked it into Susie's upper arm.

"Oho." She immediately took two menacing steps his way. He backed off, but she kept following and staying a little too close for comfort. "Wanna try that again?" She smiled in a deliberate way that bore all her teeth, especially the upper jaw was right within his eyesight. They stayed like this for a while. Berdly just watched. "Naaah no worries." She backed off a little and began scratching Kris' scalp with her knuckle. Perhaps not as much about her had changed as he had hoped. "Come on, the least we can do is use this room."

When she turned around, one of the few times he actually looked at her when she had her back turned ever since yesterday evening, he noticed something. Something tiny that didn't quite fit with her. "Stop."

"What?"

"There's something in your hair."

"You're messing with me."

He looked her right in the eyes and simply shook his head.

That seemed enough to convince her, so she turned around again and started randomly grasping for whatever there was with her own hands. But she kept missing it, because she wither went through her hair to her right, or to her left. "It's in the middle." He eventually walked up to her himself and carefully reached closer to touch a single, very thin strand of hair. It was bound together by a tiny hairpin. Mostly flat and barely noticeable, but it was there nonetheless.

"Then get it off me already!" When he had pulled it off, she apparently felt the tug and release and turned around to examine it with him. Her hair was so voluminous and she had so little care for it, she must have not noticed it at all in all this time. The hairpin had a little image attached to it. An image of a scythe, with a purple-yellow striped hilt. "Now wait a minute!" She shrugged back for a moment. They both recognized the design.

As far as he was concerned, it was definitive proof of their journey to the dark world. A devilsknife. Like the one Jevil the nigh-unbeatable jester gave them as a trophy for 'beating' him. Either that or the design came from somewhere else and it only became the scythe an imprisoned fool used in a shared feverdream.

At least a shared dream was something he was more willing to believe than that it really happened. It also would have explained how everyone they met in the dark world was spread out here.

"All right, what am I supposed to see here?" Berdly had long settled for believing that Susie - and possibly Kris - had lost her marbles for good.

"Oh, you wouldn't get it, you weren't there." Now confident for herself, that it all really happened, Susie smiled with no shred of doubt.

The bird just turned his head Kris' way with one eye-brow raised further than the human expected him to be able to. "And you were there? What is she on about?"

A smile not put on, but a real one, crept up his face. "I'm not sure either."

"Okay, enough of this. Come on, Kris. We've got work to do. Time's short on this one. And I'm not letting you slack your way out of this, if I get my grades dragged down by you, you're going to suffer with me." He agreed, said goodbye to Susie, and left school with Berdly. Even now, Kris had trouble understanding why Berdly was acting this way.

For one there was how upset he got about Alphys re-shuffling the groups. So what if he didn't get to work together with Noelle for once? They were going to solve this. Somehow. On the other hand, something strange he noticed that seemed relevant here was the way he reacted yesterday.

If he didn't get to work on this with Noelle, being upset was still somewhat understandable. But yesterday, Noelle offered for the three of them to group up and he was very opposed to that as well. He didn't even sound hostile, but nervous rather.

Kris wasn't sure, but for the time being, by process of elimination, it had little to do with Noelle and instead, the least far-fetched conclusion was that Berdly really despised Kris. Then again, he was mean, but it didn't feel like he had a chip on his shoulder. Okay that wasn't true, he definitely did have one, but Kris didn't get the impression that it was directed at him.

They didn't stop marching, until they were far enough outside for the late summer sun to douse them in new warmth after the cold of the tiled school halls surrounded them before. "We're going to my place of course. You're not getting away from this." It dawned on him that Berdly wouldn't leave him alone until they were done with physics, and considering the difficulty and the deadline, he couldn't blame him either.

"We're not working in whatever mess you have for a home. I bet you don't even have a table or work desk in your room." There was that wide smile again. As usual, Berdly was right. Asriel's desk was only just big enough for his computer's utilities, you couldn't really work on it.

"Okay, I just have to do two things first." He turned around and ignored the bird's protestations about abandoning him. He was just heading over to Mom's classroom. And as expected at this time of the day and on this day of the week, she was here and not in the teacher's lounge. "Mom, I have some difficult school work and want to work on it at Berdo's."

"Ah, is that another friend?" She seemed touch, but he wasn't sure what seeing her like this made him feel.

"Something like that."

"I hope this other thing won't take so long, or you're going to have to stay overnight." Speak of the devil, Berdly had followed him here. What? He gave the bird a questioning look. "I'm serious. We can work for a lot longer like that."

He turned back to Mom, who understood that he was about to ask her if he could and nodded. She was still softened by him 'making friends'. "Of course, shall I drive you two home and pack some things together?"

He didn't want to inconvenience her like that. He could take the initiative. "I've got a key. I can go and..."

He was pushed aside mid-sentence. "Yeah, we'd very much like that." He stared at his clueless classmate, but all he could do was shrug. "Hey! If she's offering help, be thankful and take it." Unfortunately, Berdly didn't know what Mom helping entailed. Kris did.

"Actually, before we go home, I'd like to take a detour. I heard you know Sans."

"Yes, I may have visited his store." He didn't like how she was hoarding chocolate kisses when she knew those were his favourite.

"I promised I'd spend some time with his brother today."

"All right. You two go along. I will be waiting at home."

All three of them left got ready to leave school for the day. Mom went for the car and Kris went for Sans'. Berdly for some reason followed him. Once they were outside of Mom's earshot but on the way, he tipped on Berdly's shoulder to get his attention. He was silent, but Berdly had been his classmate for long enough to know that didn't account for much.

"I don't want you to drag down my grades. We're staying at my place overnight and pulling an all-nighter. No-one's going to bed till we're done. My parents aren't home, so they won't get in the way." Kris really didn't like the sound of that. "Oh come on, me and Noelle do that all the time." Really? That was one subject she avoided when talking to Kris. They had to wait for a bit before crossing the street. At this time of the day, it was a lot more heavily used.

"You have sleepovers all the time?"

"Of course! I thought you two were like family, did she never talk about that?" She really, really didn't. It seemed much too banal to keep secret from him, but he didn't have a lot of time to think about that, since they already arrived.

They didn't even need to approach the store's door, when a short skeleton in a hoodie came outside and quickly turned the recently added 'open' sign to read 'closed'. "hey there. didn't think you'd come, and now we got two."

"Of course."

"i'm really thankful for you guys doin' this. not sure how it'll go, but there goes nothing." He sped over the concrete in his pink slippers over to the taller wooden house, unlocked the door and led the two of them inside. It was a bit of a messy living room they first came upon. The table, the floor, the carpet, the kitchen floor in the distance, everything was full of big open books, wires and scraps of metal.

They all had to stare at the floor to avoid tripping on anything. "pap! pap i got you some visitors! hello?" He led them up the stairs. Both doors were closed, but one had a strange aura to it that shone in multiple colours, that Kris had seen somewhere before. The other, the first one you came across right after walking up the stairs, was plastered with a whole range of 'hazard' signs and other warnings not to enter.

From behind it, loud music was playing, consisting almost entirely of xylophone tunes. Without further asking, Sans opened the door and immediately had to cover his mouth and gesture the two teenagers to take a few steps back. Some very unhealthy-looking green fumes came out of the inside of the room, and soon thereafter, were sucked out of the room by vent shafts installed right above the door. Apparently, this wasn't the first time this happened.

"IT'S SAFE TO COME IN NOW!", they heard a loud, screechy voice announce. There were more fumes inside the room, and vents above to funnel them out. How in the world did he get away with this? "SANS, WHAT IS THIS?" Inside a smaller room, just as messy and stuffed to the brink with scientific-looking literature and machine parts, stood a skeleton the full size of a grown man, on his two legs as if alive, just like Sans, and wearing a buttoned-up lab coat and a white pair of trousers.

"got you some friends to spend time with. maybe get to know our new neighbours and all."

"SANS FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T NEED FRIENDS! I NEED RESULTS." He turned around to get back to working on something he seemed to be working on since before they came here. It was a lengthy contraption with white plastic plating at all sides, but its internal components had extended themselves to move the white casing apart which allowed the skeleton to make some adjustments.

He was about to begin welding a metal component, with sparks spraying everywhere, right above the wooden table, in a makeshift laboratory with a flammable carpet in a house made of wood. "IF I CAN JUST GET THIS METABOLIC ACCELERATOR TO WORK, WE WILL MAKE MILLIONS!"

Sans tried to take a step closer and gestured him to calm down. "pap, come on, let's get some perspective here."

Pap put the welder down and faced him. "HOW ABOUT IF WE GET SOME AMBITION INSTEAD?"

"pap let's just try to be normal, at least for a week."

"NONSENSE, NOW GIVE ME SOME SPACE AND LET ME GO BACK TO WORK."

Resigned, Sans just opened the door again and left. "idiot baby..."

"I HEARD THAT, YOU'RE THE IDIOT BABY! NOW NEVER WASTE MY TIME LIKE THIS AGAIN!" He was long gone, by the time Papyrus was done. He did acknowledge the two of them though. "I'M SORRY FOR WASTING YOUR TIME, LITTLE CHILDREN."

Berdly immediately raised a hand to correct him. "We're not little chi-"

"AS A CONSOLATION, TAKE THIS." He reached down beneath one of his tables and pulled up another lengthy contraption. It had a grip and a trigger at its end, a bit like a gun. Except it had no barrel, or anything to pull or manipulate to release it. "DON'T WORRY, IT'S PERFECTLY HARMLESS, LOOK!" he pointed at the wall to their left, but when he pulled the trigger, instead of firing something, a bright, golden light came out of its front end.

The brightest part of this light seemed contained in a slowly extending 'blade' like a light sword from a popular sci-fi series. It went on and on, until it hit the wall, then shone a little brighter. But that was all it ended up doing. The wall didn't catch fire or was welded through or melted or anything of that sort, so Papyrus turned it off again by pulling the trigger a second time.

"IT'S A PROTOTYPE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO CREATE A RAY OF SOLID LIGHT, BUT I NEED A SPECIAL KIND OF GLASS FIBRE THAT'S OUT OF BUDGET TO MAKE IT, SO IT'S USELESS." Both of the skeleton's guests exchanged a perplexed look. "GO AHEAD. I DON'T NEED IT."

The bird extended his hands to accept this unexpected gift. "Uh...thanks?"

"MY PLEASURE. AND TELL SANS NOT TO DO THIS AGAIN."

Perplexed and with little answers, they left the room and went down the stairs. "This something you do regularly?", the bird asked, only to receive another shrug for an answer.

When they arrived back at home, Berdly's beak dropped. Kris saw what they faced coming from a mile away. "Ah, you're already back." Mom was happy to see them. She had packed his bags. Four very, very big bags and was gesturing them to help her load them into the van.

"Mrs D...Toriel, he's not moving in with me, he's just staying overnight."

"Oh, I am aware. I just wanted to make sure he has anything he might need." They barely all fit into the vehicle and even after they were done, Berdly would spend the ride to his place squashed in his seat. While the two of them helped her, Berdly already had a very bad feeling about pulling an all-nighter with Kris.


	2. Dragon Roost Homestead

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 02

The Dark Descent

* * *

When Berdly and Kris left the abandoned classroom, Susie didn't intend to leave immediately. She was too curious about the dark world. While Kris had spent the day keeping a cool head and repeatedly telling himself it wasn't real, Susie fawned over the idea like a little girl and was open about it in ways she wouldn't have been otherwise. And now that they weren't watching that was no different.

She picked up a random card from the floor. A three of hearts. She stared at it, and , without thinking, started talking to it. "Hello?" Of course, it didn't respond. What was she thinking? It was just a card. Then again, maybe there was no point in overthinking it. She shot the card a wink and leaned down to the card to talk to it. "Hey good looking, what's cooking?" Again, no response.

Then, she heard something and froze. Upon looking up, she realized she got caught by the deer girl from her class flirting with a playing card. Best thing she could think of was to drop the card and pretend it didn't happen. "Um...", Noelle began. "...is this a bad time?"

It was best for Susie to keep her cool. She put her hands back in her jacket pockets. "No, what's up?"

"I wanted to ask if we should..." Surprised at what she found looking around in the room she was peeking into, she couldn't keep her thoughts from drifting. "...what a mess."

"I guess."

"I - I actually wanted to ask if we should go back to do the project together - if you don't mind." She had walked up to Susie, but was intimidated by her stature. "B-but we could clean up this place and work here instead."

Actually, Susie did like that indeed. She remembered Seam saying the 'Lightners' abandoned them. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea if they changed that. "Sure, I'll get chairs." By the time she was carrying one of the slightly longer tables through the doorframe, Noelle was already done picking up all the cards from the ground and had placed them back with the other piles of cards.

"Okay. I - uhm." Gee, did this girl ever speak in full sentences? She wasn't like this in class. And she avoided looking Susie in the eyes too, or at least in their general direction. Instead, trembling as she did, she stared at her bag and reached inside to pull out something other than the papers from this morning. "I...I got you something. It's for you."

Very hastily, she placed a cardboard box in front of Susie, and when the confused dragon peeled open the lid, she was all the more confused. Chalk. A lot of it. The 'present' was just a box of chalk.

"Uhm...thank you?"

Her in her own eyes very reasonable reaction worried the flustered girl. "Is it not - don't you like it?"

"No, it's just." She leaned a little closer, picked one up and started putting it in her mouth like a cigarette. "Why are you giving me a box of chalk? Is this about yesterday?"

She didn't mean to, but she appeared to terrify the girl. She threw up both hands and tried to dismiss it, and stuttered for quite a while before she could actually talk. "I - it's - I thought..." Her eyes were shooting left and right in search for an answer.

"You thought what?"

The deer lowered her head and got down to putting all the relevant school material on the table to work. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." Strange. Susie got the notion that she should bring this up when talking to Kris. To see if he had been ratting her out.

They got to work, but they only made progress very slowly. The longer Susie let Noelle talk, the more confident she became in doing so. But overtime, she got the impression that Noelle wasn't taking this seriously. She took ages solving basic stuff she could do in seconds when they were in class. Which made the entire exercise pointless because Susie wasn't taking this seriously either.

So with an increasing frequency, her attention drifted away from the actual subject matter and towards the cupboard and all the remaining chess- and other board game pieces still strewn on the floor.

"...and if we use this formula to calculate the acceleration and then construct a triangle to...hello?"

She was a bit shaken from being woken up from a trance thinking about yesterday. "Uh yeah. So..."

This time, for once, the deer wasn't nervous. She was pouting at Susie's lack of attention. "Are you even listening?"

"Yeah...nah. Not really."

"You know if you don't want to do this, we don't have to."

"Wait, what?"

"The material here is beyond what we're supposed to have done and there's too much of it to do in one day. I don't know what is going on, but I'm confident we won't be in trouble if it isn't all done tomorrow." She tried to give Susie a reassuring smile. "You seem pretty interested in those cards."

"Kinda."

"Should we take a break and play a game?" She got up and fetched the deck she had just collected, came back to her seat and began going through them all within a few seconds. "Okay, we can't use this deck."

"What? Why?"

"It's incomplete. There's no Queen of Spades, and no Joker."

"Wait, there was, right next to Seam."

Noelle was startled for a second. "S-Seam?"

"Yeah, Seam." She got up to fetch the plushie and placed it on the table.

Noelle had to cover her mouth and squee a little. "You gave the plush animal a name?"

"Pretty sure he alre - " For a moment, Susie shot Noelle a glare, even though the glare was more directed at herself. Just blurting out the truth would have made her look completely nuts she had completely forgotten about that. "...yeah, I gave him a name."

Only after that, she realized that admitting that she was interested in these playing cards and giving plushies names made her look like a complete nerd, she needed a scapegoat. "When me and Kris found this place, we found all the cards and he wanted me to give him a name."

"Oh. Seems like you two had an interesting day." Noelle had gotten up to fetch a new deck. There were a lot of them, all of them unopened.

"Boy, did we..."

She sat back down and began to shuffle them. She did so with so much of a routine, she didn't even need to look at them and was looking as Susie instead. "So what game do you want to play? Poker? Jass? Go fish?"

"Whatever you know the rules of, I never really played with cards."

"Go fish then. Let's keep it simple."

While Noelle was still busy shuffling cards over and over, Susie couldn't help but wonder: "Why do you know so much about playing cards anyway?"

"They used to be a hobby of mine. Playing cards, reading cards, I used to read my way through all sorts of rule sets and guides. I even drew a whole set of tarot cards of my own. I could bring them to school tomorrow and read your fortune."

"I never heard you talk about that before."

Slowly, she shrunk back and started looking the other way. "It felt like a wasted effort in the end, so I sort of lost interest."

"Why, what happened?"

Noelle kept looking away, but eventually considered shuffling done at last. "Nothing. Nothing happened."

* * *

The house Berdly lived in, quite a bit to the west from where Kris usually wandered around, was five stories tall. A single-family house with five floors, and each one with at least one balcony. The sky around it was still pretty clear. "Let's not waste a second!" Berdly was very impatient. Kris hoped he wasn't going to be very impatient for the next eight or so hours on end. The bags were so big, the three of them were barely enough to carry them all. What did Mom put in those?

"Maybe, I could meet your mother as well?" Toriel followed the two all the way to the front door, where Berdly fumbled in the pocket of his shirt to fetch the key and unlock the door.

"Missed her by a few hours. We're all on our own."

"Oh." She stopped and stared at Kris. "All on your own?"

"Yep."

"Nobody else?"

The bird raised an eyebrow. Kris knew he was noticing how used Mom was to keep an eye on Kris every step of the way on everything he did. And he worried - correctly - that Berdly would use this to make fun of him later down the line. "Well, there's my little sister, if that counts."

"Shouldn't someone look out for you? Do you want me to spend the night here as well?"

Annoyed, Berdly picked up and threw away a feather that hung over his right eyebrow. "Done this more often than I can count, it'll be fine."

While the bird was already carrying one of the bags further inside, Mom grabbed Kris by the shoulder pulled him to make him face her and then held him by both. She had a very urgent look on her face. Not angry, concerned was a better way to describe it. "Please, be good. If you need anything, do not hesitate to call. I will be right at home, I can come by any time." Kris nodded. "And please, please. No more extended disappearances."

He told her not to worry. They hugged and he made his way after Berdly with another bag. "And be sure to open the blue one!", his mother called after them with her van's door already open. With all the bags inside, Kris immediately proceeded to doing as she had told. Ham sandwiches. And some with salami. In that short time she had, she somehow managed to pack all these bags and make sandwiches.

"Perfect." Berdo picked one out. It was still wrapped in wrapping film. He squeezed it a bit and saw the butter ooze out a bit. "A bit fatty. But hey, what did I expect? You having a good diet?" Despite that, he took them all upstairs and opened one for himself to eat anyway. A carpet was covering the stairs. For the time being, Kris only brought his school bag along while following his classmate upstairs.

The ground floor, when he peeked past the open doorframes, consisted mostly of unused rooms relegated to storage for outdoor utilities like bicycles, garden chairs and tables, a grill, garden tools and so on. The first floor looked much more like what he expected. The living room, kitchen and dining room made up the entire floor. Here, they stopped to put the sandwiches in the fridge.

Kris followed him to see if Berdly had anything worthwhile other than the sandwiches to eat, but was immediately shouted at, the moment he reached for a familiar and very tasty-looking pastry. "Hey! Don't touch that!"

Rather than immediately retracting his open hand, Kris froze in place. "I assume it's yours."

"Noelle's."

"Noelle keeps her food in your fridge?"

"No, she made it. And you're not going to touch it, now get away from there." Regular sleepovers, baking those crusty pieces with creamy goodness on the inside for him, how much involvement did Noelle have with this guy? Either way, he probably had best not to antagonize Berdly any further, so without a word, he closed the fridge, picked up a bottle of water and two glasses from the cupboard and put them in the bag to carry it along as they headed further upstairs.

The entire next floor save for its bathroom, consisted only of office space. Neatly set up desks with computers, racks of cds and other old disc types, printers, scanners and a faxing machine. And a pattern he noticed by now, was on each floor, there was at least one piece of furniture covered in little statues and paintings that looked like they were from the middle east, the far east, from all over the world. "There we are." The next floor had several rooms and a little bathroom of its own.

Kris assumed one of them belonged to his little sister, going by the pink painted walls, plastic house and the poster advertising something kitschy involving pastel coloured horses, as well as the little blue chick walking out of it in her pajamas. "Berdo where's Scott?" She was carrying a 'Debbie' brand plastic doll under her arm. It was modeled to resemble an unnaturally tall human woman with very long legs, long blonde hair and wearing some kind of work uniform.

"Hell if I know where Scott is." her brother just snapped at her. 'Scott' was the trademark male doll that was usually part of a set with all the 'Debbie' dolls. Their height made sense with the dollhouse in the girl's room.

"Could you look for him?" She looked a little helpless standing there.

"We'll see, now leave me alone."

All Kris did was slowly raise a hand to wave at the girl and greet her. "Hi. I'm Kris.", and then proceed to follow 'Berdo' again while he was greeted back.

The very first thing Kris heard Berdly do, while he was still coming in, was lock something with a key. Berdly's dedicated room, which from the one bed, Kris could tell was all his own, must have been twice as big as his and Asriel's. It had a tiny oval carpet in the middle that must have been there only for decorative purposes. One side had two large windows that doubled as balcony doors. The other had regular windows and a long, long table along the entire side of the wall.

The corner he had been able to see from outside had his bed with a cleanly painted white frame. What surprised him was that rather than having the kinds of things he expected under the bed, all that was there upon looking closely, was another mattress. In the corner opposite to the beds were two humongous red boxes. They had their lids on, but whatever was in there, there must have been a lot of it.

"Let's not waste any time." Berdly placed all his paperwork on his desk and Kris, sitting quite a bit to the right of him, did the same. He laid out all the loose sheets of paper with school notes he had amassed in the course of the day's classes and began to sort them. "Hey!" As a few of the pages fluttered a little too close to a stack of little plastic shelves that stood on the table, an angry bird near-shouted and pointed at him. "Be careful. I don't want your stuff to get mixed up with that."

Kris remained silent, glanced back at those plastic shelves and pushed them a little further to the side so there was no danger of that happening. Then when Berdly wasn't looking, half in jest, and half out of curiosity, Kris' hand wandered slowly over to the plastic shelves only to be forcibly pushed onto the table. "Stop that." Now he couldn't resist biding his time to check what secrets were hidden in there later.

Once he had sorted everything that wasn't relevant to their project to their respective binder, he was ready and they could get to work. It was much easier, now that they could easily look up everything they needed on the internet with Berdly's computer, sometimes with explanations that were more comprehensive and to the point than what the school material gave them. And Mom wasn't kidding when she asked him to keep his phone on.

She did call to ask if he was fine and whether he needed anything. And whether he and Berdly had changed their mind and wanted her to come over, or if he wanted to come back home early. There was a lot of time for her to ask a lot of questions, because less than an hour after each of her phone calls, she called him again. This wasn't normal, even for her. She knew exactly where he was. Why was she so worried now?

Berdly wasn't as impatient with that as Kris was afraid he'd be. But that had other reasons. "Berdie! Did you find him?"

"No, we're busy." This was his first interaction with his tiny little sister ever since they got to work. Or rather tried to. Since then, from time to time, she would go upstairs or downstairs to look for her toy. When she did, her brother regularly followed her to check on her to make sure she didn't do anything dangerous. When he was gone all the way to the ground floor, Kris finally reached over to pull out one of the many sheets of paper in this stack of shelves he was supposed not to touch.

It was, just as the 'math' marker at the shelf he grabbed from advertised, a sheet with notes on math problems in Noelle's handwriting. And the same went for any others he went through. No love letters, no naughty stories, not even some doodles. That explained the third glass and toothbrush in this level's bathroom with 'N' written on it. She had her own shelf for school notes, her own toothbrush, her own mattress, Kris couldn't walk ten metres into a school building without holding his mother's hand and here Noelle was spending so much time at Berdly's with no parents watching?

And yet he knew from things she had said on the previous day, when his choices weren't his own, that she was more interested in Susie than Berdly, so for all he could tell, they were nothing more than a perfectly innocent, tight-knit working team of aspiring academic prodigies in a sea of suburban mediocrity.

Still, something seemed off to him about this. If he hadn't visited the hospital and talked to Noelle after that, both against his will, he wouldn't have even known what he knew. This constant within the previous day started feeling like it was a blessing along with being a curse.

When Kris just got done with another phone call from Mom, he could hear and feel rumbling from upstairs. And shouting. "He's scared! He ran away! What if something bad happens to him?", the girl screamed while wrestling with her brother over whether she got to climb the stairs again.

"He's not scared, he's a piece of plastic!"

"You're so mean!" Berdly wrestled and dragged her back to her room, knelt down and held her by both shoulders. "Look. Just go to bed. I'm sure wherever you left him, he'll still be there and he will turn up sooner or later." She teared up a little, but she was tired enough to rub her eyes, turn around and go to bed. "Phew. So much for that!" The increasingly strained bird wiped some sweat off his forehead, adjusted his slipping glasses and removed a stray feather from his otherwise still flawless shirt.

He gave Kris a nod. "Come on then. We've still got work to do." Berdly's - and Noelle's approach to doing these projects was to solve all of it on separate notes, then compile the path to the solutions on a presentable set of sheets with nothing struck through, erased or otherwise altered.

Then - because that usually ended up with corrections too - repeating the same process at least once until they were confident in all the problems being solved correctly. Which was why working their way through this took even longer than Kris expected.

Eventually, the orange evening light made way for the dark of the night, and the two of them had long opened the window and dimmed Berdly's table lamp enough that the only thing you could really see, was whichever piece of paper was directly beneath it. That was when yet again, at twelve o'clock in the night, Mom called. Now, for once, Berdly showed signs of his patience with her wearing off.

The moment he heard the phone vibrate on the table, his feathers stood up. "Does this woman ever actually sleep?" He glanced over at Kris, who didn't like what he was hearing. "What?"

It couldn't be helped. He knew Berdly was right, this was going a little bit overboard. He gestured Berdly to be quiet, lay both arms on the table and buried his face in one of his elbows before picking up. The moment he did, he only made muffled noises that resembled what he was 'saying'. "Hmmph Mph.", he began.

As expected, Mom's voice had a worried note to it. It almost felt like she was expecting trouble and was relieved to be proven otherwise. "Oh, I am sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"Mhmph."

"I am sorry. It is good to know you're all right. Good night, Kris."

"Gnph nph, Mph." And with this, she had hung up.

Berdly's closed beak was torn into a very wide grin and he raised a hand pointing at him like a pistol. "Didn't think you had it in you, you little Momma's boy."

When they just thought they had some rest from their distractions, someone knocked on the door. "Berdie..." Of course it was her sister. The phone vibrating on the table must have been loud enough to wake her up. "I can't sleep. I miss Scott."

With narrowed eyes, Berdly stared back at Kris and sighed. "All right, you go back to bed, we'll go look for him."

Since she had already looked in several places around the house without finding him, they figured to look in Berdly's room first, Kris pulled out what he could only assume was Noelle's mattress to see if Scott was under Berdly's bed. No such luck. Berdly opened the two huge red boxes, with the lids still concealing to Kris what was inside them, their search started off smooth. Of course, that was until Kris was shouted at again. "Stop! Step right back."

He was being very strict, and Kris suspected it had something to do with his hand being half a foot away from the grip of the very tall closet next to the red boxes. "Aw, not that it matters, it's locked anyway. But either way, don't go touching other people's closets. It's rude." All right, maybe he had a point. "It's not going to be there anyway. " Kris shrugged it off and followed Berdly while they started looking all around the house.

They searched in places like under the sofa in the living room, under the table in the dining room, within cupboards in the kitchen, in those pieces of furniture with the statues, it wasn't anywhere. They tried the office rooms and all sorts of places, there. Nothing.

At that point, a thought occurred to Kris that he immediately vocalized. "So what if it actually is in the closet after all?" That kind of big closet in your room wasn't something you just kept locked at all times, and Kris was convinced it was the thing Berdly locked for this particular occasion, the moment he entered the room right before Kris did.

"It won't. She wouldn't open it. She knows better." They tried the office rooms a little more and found nothing. Kris only thought it to himself this time. It was going to be in the closet, wasn't it? They even searched the parents' bedroom, with all of its cupboards.

He wasn't there. He really was going to be in the closet, wasn't he? They even went all the way downstairs to search the storage rooms full of outdoor utilities which they had to get out of the way while searching, where the mess was so tall, it only ended where their heads began. They spent so long searching everywhere for that doll, Kris was afraid to even look at the time.

For lack of ideas where else to look, they were already on the way back to Berdly's room, so perhaps this was a good opportunity for Kris to bring it up again. "I really, really think he's in the closet."

"Ugh, fine!" He really sounded annoyed now. Kris already saw how saying something was a bad idea. "But..." He stopped barely outside of his room, when Kris stood just around the corner from where he would be able to see the closet door. To not let things get too sour in the middle of the night, he dropped the curiosity for the time being and did as he was told. "Stupid momma's boy, it's not going to be in there, nobody touches...wait!"

He heard him unlock the closet with a key he must have had on him. What followed was a brief moment of silence, in which Kris felt like the room got colder, and some shadow began covering the walls. Then, when he was still around the corner and unable to see what was going on, he clearly heard, Berdly slide against the wood, which was followed by a strange thud. "Where's - help! There's no floor!"

When decided to ignore the bird's wishes, he just caught him hanging off the entrance. The rest of him dangling down an empty void inside his closet. Scared for his life. "What's going - help!" He tried to rush closer to help him, but by the time he got there, Berdly's fingers were sliding off and leaving behind loose feathers. Kris did try to reach down to catch his hand, but he simply failed. The bird, screaming off the top of his lungs for help, fell down into the endless darkness behind him. No, this couldn't be happening.

He reached into the dark of the closet and wound his hand around. If he wound his left arm right around the right side of the frame, he could move his hand 'outside' of the closet, while still being inside. He started to realize what was going on, and that he had no choice but to jump after him.

And fast.

He balanced off the ledge with the middle of his feet, held onto the frame with his hands, until he was in a position where he could try to soften his fall. But in the end, he had to let go, so he pushed himself off the ledge. Immediate panic grabbed him by the spine and part with intent, part out of reflex, he pulled his arms and legs forward and bent them a bit. The cold wind against his whole body made it terrifyingly clear to him how fast he was going.

He regretted going after Berdly, but now it was too late. Then, he crashed on solid ground. Everything hurt. His whole body was in pain. He lay there for a while, not sure whether he even could get up. But when he tried, he could and moving all the joints that should have been crushed the hardest, he realized he was perfectly fine. One by one, he checked every part of his body. Even balanced on his forefeet to make sure those were okay. Nothing was broken, there weren't even any real wounds.

He was only staying in place when checking for injuries. He couldn't see after all. It was almost pitch black all around him. Then again, that wasn't entirely true. The only things he could see, were the pale-greyish floor and his own hands. He couldn't even see where the light source was that made it visible, it was as though there was none. The ground wasn't even, in fact it was very steep. Standing on it and not sliding down was easy, because it took some effort to even get up.

The ground was very sticky, but he noticed it wasn't that there was something sticky on the ground, it was the ground itself. The stickiness went too deep to be something 'on' the ground that didn't drip off the ledges to his left and right. Only now, that he was here, in the silence and the dark, wandering down a sticky slope, did he have time to really think about this in a way he couldn't when he was chasing after Berdly or feared for his life. The dark world was real.

All the way until now, even when hearing Susie talk about it, he suspected deep down that it was some manner of a shared dream. He shouldn't have been so afraid of believing what he saw with his own eyes, just out of fear of putting people off. Come to think of it, Susie was convinced it was real from the start. Maybe it was time to start trusting himself - and others - a little more.

He stared down at his hands. He was equipped with metal gloves, and his skin was blue again. There was no doubt. He was wearing the same armor he did in Ralsei's and Lancer's kingdom. And not far from where he had landed, he already saw something. A sparkling white light, similar to many he had seen last time.

He went closer to slowly approach it. There were only very, very few of those in the real world, the 'light' world. Lights that no-one else could see. He reached closer and touched it, and knew, if anything really bad happened, he could always go back to now. Not just 'here', but 'now'. As if whatever bad things happened had never happened at all.

Wandering through the dark, he eventually spotted a silhouette. Upon coming closer, it wasn't a silhouette. In the darkness that surrounded them, the figure's orange clothes were brightly visible. Dressed in a not too tight, formal suit, with a jacket, a tie, matching shirt and suspenders. He was wearing a vintage bowler hat and even his feathers shared the attire's bright orange colour instead of his usual blue.

It was Berdly, and he was standing at the edge of the platform and staring off into the dark. "Kris?" Kris walked up to him to stand beside him and stare into the abyss with him. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure myself. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I don't even believe it myself."

Berdly set off to continue down the slope. "Cut that out, if you know what just happened, just say it. Am I dreaming? Is this a dream?"

He shrugged together when Kris took him up on the offer and pinched him. "You want to know what me and Susie really were doing yesterday?"

"...sure?"

"We were here. I think. A place that's a bit like this. Not quite the same, but yeah."

The slope just ended, blending into a wooden platform attached to a much, much bigger wall that reached further in all directions than they could see. On the platform stood a tiny wooden hut with green leaves for a roof. When they left the sticky slope, and carefully stepped onto the wooden boards, something stirred within the hut.

Something came around to peek outside. A tiny creature with even more tiny green arms. It consisted mostly of large, wound-together red petals and had a face right on them. "Hey there, little fella..." Berdly tried getting closer. "...could you tell us where we..."

"Stranger danger!" The creature just took off as fast as it could with its tiny feet. It ran away from the hut and onto another slope behind the house. They tried chasing it. "Wait! We just want to know where we are!" But that thing was fast. They could barely keep up. It didn't stop until it came by three green stalks that somehow just peered up past the left edge of the slope. Two of them already had similar sets of red petals mounted on top of them.

The little creature jumped on the third one, turned around so its back pointed at Berdly and Kris, jumped up in place and upon hitting the stem, its legs sank into it. Then, all three stalks began to move about. All three trembled and one by one, the wound-together rose petals opened up horizontally to reveal very carnivorous-looking mouths with sharp teeth. Two of the roses growled at them, while a third one barked.

Then, something rocked the platform and almost sent the two stumbling over just from the imbalance, hadn't their feet been practically glued to it. Large paws and a large body, all of which were made up of thorny vines, climbed onto the slope and got in their way. All three heads belonged to that one body.

Berdly stumbled backwards from the shock so much, he fell over and wound up with his hands stuck to the ground for a moment. "Geez laweez! What is that?" The growling roses foamed at their mouths like rabid dogs. Kris struggled to come up with a name for it on the fly. It was a little bouquet of roses that barked, so a barquet? Then again, it didn't double as much as a dog, but more as a cerberus. So a Roserus?

Nevertheless, that thing looked hostile. Kris took a battle stance and swung his hand to summon his red sword. "Wait!" The bird was getting up again, but he had no weapons. "How'd you do that?"

"I don't know, I just did. Don't you have a weapon to draw? Just reach for it."

"Do I look to you like some weirdo who carries weapons around? Wait.." It wasn't until then, that he realized that under his coat, he wore a holster. And reaching for it and drawing what he found did indeed lead to him having a pistol in his hand. It wasn't the kind of gun you expected, it didn't seem like you could refill it with ammunition anywhere. It was a dark red, one-handed firearm with a roundish design that was the widest where grip and barrel met.

There wasn't much more time for introductions though, since the rabid Roserus already came closer and launched its middle head right the still confused bird's way. Kris jumped in the way, to get close enough attack it and severely injure the Roserus' neck.

If he wasn't going to move, they were going to have big trouble with this thing. "Do something!"

Berdly shrugged. "What? I can't just shoot it!"

Kris figured that he had to go about this differently. As soon as he caught the beast's attention, he patted both his ankles to beckon it to come closer like a dog. It simply barked all the more. This didn't seem like it worked. He turned back to Berdly. "You can, just do it! Take aim and shoot!"

Unsure what he should do, Berdly finally pointed his weapon at one of the heads with both hands. The moment he had his arms stretched out and aimed at the creature, a little circle lit up around the head, along with a reticle. Then, a bigger circle appeared around the smaller one and shrank down. When he pulled the trigger, it fired a glowing bullet at the creature's head that dug its way through the petals. The painful cry that followed, showed them that it was working. The attack actually hurt the creature.

The Roserus stumbled backwards and was on the retreat, when Kris pursued it and took another swing. This time, he cut right into its main body. Thorns broke off the vines, floated up in the air, and then shot right Berdly's way. And Kris knew at this point, that Berdly would waste too much time thinking about it, to actually dodge the attack. He raised his other hand to summon his shield, and rushed over to Berdly to block all the thorns. "You have to start dodging attacks!"

Berdly just snapped right back at him. "How many times have you done this before?"

"Once - sort of."

Now that they had it intimidated and Berdly at least had attacking figured out, they continued to injure it while it retreated down the platform. It was still a strenuous fight for Kris, because every time a new wave of thorns appeared, he had to either alert Berdly to get him to actually move out of harm's way, or block them with his own shield and sometimes even get hit by a few anyway. The more they swung and fired at it, the further it retreated.

They weren't sure how long they had to do that, but eventually, the creature stopped, roared, and lowered its legs. Then, with a force that rocked the entire platform they were on, it launched itself into the air and took a leap right into the depths below. They didn't even feel or hear the impact. At last, it was quiet again.

"Phew, good thing that's over." Berdly sighed as well, but he stopped. Kris tried turning around and encouraging him to follow. Not that Kris knew where they were going, but moving ahead was better than just staying in place forever. "I'm sorry, but we need to move on."

He never really calmed down, instead, he stared at Kris. He was so furious, his frowning beak was trembling. When Kris was going back and forth between looking back to see if Berdly was following, and moving ahead, he had to stop, when Berdly screamed at him. "Kris, will you get back here and explain to me what the hell is going on? What was that? What is all this?" He pointed at the void beneath them and a foot he lifted.

He was now wearing shoes. Matching in colour with the rest of his getup and made specifically to fit his feet. "What is that? Why do I have a gun? Scratch that!" He reached under his coat on the other side to pull out another weapon almost identical to the first one. "Why do I have two guns? Why do you have a sword, and what are you even wearing?"

Perhaps he couldn't be rushing this like with Susie. He had an easy start to get used to the dark world, because Susie was a simple person. A brute that just attacked everyone and didn't question her own motives, let alone questioning anything strange about her environment. She just acted without thinking. Berdly was the polar opposite and losing his cool over a lot of open questions that Kris didn't know the answer to.

So all he could do, was his best at trying to calm down. He marched right towards him, grabbed him by both shoulders, and gave him a stern look. "Listen. I know this might be confusing to you, I know I don't have all the answers but we're going to get through this. We are going to go home, we are going to find your sister's toy. Everything is going to be fine in the end. But I need your help for that."

It did calm him down a bit. Not as much as Kris hoped, but it did. He was still very upset with him. "At least give me the answers you do have."

"That's a bit difficult. This isn't really the same as being in the closet with Susie."

"Uh..."

"I mean, this looks different from where we ended up. There are no smooth purple walls with black goop."

"...smooth purple 'walls'..."

"Yes, and there were...things wiggling around."

"...things wiggling around, huh..." Berdly gave him an increasingly strange look. And for the love of him, Kris couldn't put together why.

"Yes, and this white stuff that blows up when you touch it too much."

Berdly raised a finger. "Okay wait, stop, serious question: Are you messing with me right now?"

They stared at each other for a bit until Kris started to realize how this was sounding. "Wait, no, I mean that's what was around us instead of this." He had enough trying to explain it to Berdly, he'd only hear what he wanted to hear anyway. "You know what? Let's talk this out another time, I'll draw every bit of it when we're back, it will make sense."

"I don't want to see drawings of what 'things' you and Susie have been 'wiggling around' in a closet." Kris began to cover his face with his hands, but he didn't bother to respond to it. "It's bad enough just imagining what and who you might be drawing as it is."


	3. Christmas Town

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 03

Christmas Town

* * *

Susie and Noelle spent a long time just sitting in that classroom playing card games. Susie played it cool, but it was fun to her. It felt almost like being in the dark world again, and playing with all its denizens. Probably because even though they were other cards they were playing with, something like that was actually happening here. After the second party of Go Fish, Noelle couldn't help but notice Susie sneaking a glance at the cupboard from time to time.

She just couldn't help but think about what was up with Lancer and all the others and in a way, Noelle caught onto it. Once she gathered the cards to shuffle them at the end of the party, she brought it up. "Is...is something wrong? Is this boring you?"

That was what it took for Susie to snap out of the trance staring at the upper shelf with that incomplete deck. "Oh, what? No, no, it's just..." She got up and headed over to pick up the deck and bring it back to the table. "You said this deck is useless, right?"

Noelle was frozen on her chair, unsure of what she wanted. "Yes...it's incomplete. There's plenty of whole decks right behind it."

The dragon girl opened the 'Bicycle' brand box and spread out the deck in her hand. "That means nobody's going to play with it."

Still frozen in motion otherwise and with both eyebrows raised in confusion, the deer girl nodded. "Yes..."

Susie raised her head. "You know what? I'm stealing this deck then. It's mine now."

"All right. I - I suppose it isn't as if someone would miss it. Or notice."

With one hand, Susie pointed right at her. "Exactly." With the other, she continued to slide the cards along so she could give them all a quick glance. "So, bear with me." By now, Noelle was a bit less off-put and shuffled back closer to the table to pay her more attention. "So imagine if these playing card decks were kingdoms. With people. All the cards are people actually."

"Okay..."

"I can't really figure this one out. Imagine every card was a person, and the king..." She pulled out the king of spades and placed him on the table. "...the king had a son. A prince. Who would it be? The ace?"

She pointed an ace of spades at Noelle, who shook her head. From the looks of it, she was back in her comfort zone by now. " 'Der Bube'"

"What?

"It's the Jack. The German word used for 'Knaves' or 'Jacks' translates to 'boy'. Which can mean the King's 'boy'."

"Oh." She shuffled through the cards, kept the Jack in one hand and put the rest of the deck in the box. It depicted a young human man with blond hair, blue eyes and an elegant mustache, smooth skin and wearing some expensive looking clothes with intricate golden patterns on it. She could only grin when looking at it. So gracious, so clean, so well-kept. So not Lancer.

"What's wrong? What's so funny?"

Susie's laughter was contagious. "It's nothing, I was just thinking of someone."

* * *

Wandering through the dark on a pale, sticky floor, Kris and Berdly finally saw something in the distance. A few small, faint lights. It was impossible to tell from here what they were. When they came closer, eventually, their path on this platform ended and made way for a seemingly transparent ground.

It felt like walking on solid, yet smooth glass, but the faint lights, maintained as it appeared by glowing crystals mounted on floating chandeliers, reflected in various glittering patterns beneath them. The floor was transparent and the chunks it was made of, we're cut blow in ways that reflected each light back up several times. The area was surrounded by very tall walls in three directions.

The one they came from was the only one not walled off. What was more, immediately beneath each chandelier was a table, along with a few chairs.

Berdly stayed towards the middle of the hall, while Kris preferred to wander along the walls and explore. There were corridors that led away from the hall they had gotten to, one leading into each side wall. And opposite from the direction they came, there was a double staircase that converged onto a ramp to walk onto the platform above.

He was a bit on edge, because twice while exploring the hall, he thought he saw a shadow somewhere around a corner, only for it to vanish before he could come closer. Then, in the middle of the hall, above one of the tables, Berdly spotted something. A little scrap of paper, dangling off of a string from above. It read 'sit here'. He called his classmate. "Hey! There's something here!"

Still careful, looking around all the corners and over his shoulder all the time, he very slowly followed the bird's suggestion and came closer to the table Berdly stood at. By the time he arrived, the note had disappeared. When he did though, he heard something and was alarmed enough to draw his sword. All around from above, bright lights turned on that revealed the white walls painted over with brightly coloured patterns in red and green, with traces of orange and brown here and there.

From all the corridors, rows of creatures came in. They were similar to the Roserus from before, plant creatures consisting of wound-together vines and stems with leaves and thorns, but this time, they had two legs and two arms, and faces on the buds and blooms they had for heads. They were dressed in extravagant dresses that resembled that of aristocracy in the western renaissance.

And other than the Roserus, they came in red roses for heads, pink roses for heads, tulips, lilies, and a lot of others in bright colours that he didn't recognize by name. They were dancing in sync while they moved inside in a line that never broke formation save for turning and forming a wide circle around the tables. All the while spreading confetti from little boxes they carried with them.

Garlands of pinewood twigs outfitted with bells and red cloth were dangling down from above, apparently along an intricate structure that more flower people from above were steering. As well as regular letter-shaped ones that simply read 'Merry Christmas'. Then, more came down the stairs. Never breaking their dance, but taking a wide step to the outside and dancing pirouettes in place, the dancers made way for the musicians to pass the circle and get inside it.

Three trumpeters, a saxophonist, a few more carrying the parts of an entire drum set and setting it up where the other musicians came to a halt, and one plant creature with a bass. And once further inside, they began playing their instruments to a loud and lively festive tune, together with a pianist who was accompanying their music from above. In fact looking at it now, the upper floor wasn't so much a floor as a set of platforms and catwalks that was merely connected to the staircase.

There even were windows so you could see some of the people steering the garlands and making adjustments to the entire complicated-looking getup occasionally wave at them.

And finally, one more plant creature came gracefully dancing down the stairs, donning a clean, black suit with a white shirt and a tie as deep red as his rose-shaped head. He had a mustache and another rose in his upper suit jacket. He greeted the two with his arms spread wide and an unbelievably happy smile. "Bienvenue, mes amis! Velcome to Christmas Town!" Both parties, visibly confused, stared at the approaching man.

"I would 'ave never thought that we would receive not one, but three guests in one day! Excusez-moi if our performance is too much of a surprise. Ve have waited for so long!" Gradually, Kris started considering it safe to put down his weapon and sit down. Very excitedly, the man shook one of the two visitors' hands with both his own.

The two of them though, exchanged some very confused looks, until Kris decided to speak up. He was thinking about outright asking them what all of this was, but considering the effort they made to put on a show for the two of them, he stopped himself at the last second. It would have been inconsiderate. "This is a very...impressive reception."

The suited rose gestured all around them with an open hand. "Mais oui! Everyone of our performers 'have been preparing for ze grand performance all zeir lives! For when Christmas is finally 'ere."

"But it isn't Christmas."

This didn't seem to bother him much, he waved that right off. "Christmas is not 'ere. But ve vant to be ready for when Christmas is finally coming." He looked around to ensure none of the other plants were close enough to hear, and then leaned a little closer to speak with a lowered voice. "Zat and ve're desperate, we welcome all guests. Just let us 'ave this."

"Desperate? Christmas is only in a few months."

"By now zis town was built by ze lightners a year ago. To perform when Christmas arrives. Since then, ve 'ave been waiting for generations for Christmas to come, but in all zis time, Christmas never came. Is strange, hein?"

"You've been waiting for Christmas for a whole year?"

"C'est vrai. Ve are happy for every visitor to practise our performance with. And quelle surprise, before you, ve 'ad another visitor!" He turned around to look through one of the glass windows onto the mechanic upper part of the hall. "Is safe to come downstairs now!" And as announced, someone did come down.

A man that must have been over eight foot tall, with proportionally very tall legs, a toned physique you could vaguely estimate even though the costume that was loose here and there, and a very masculine, but not hostile-looking human face. It was easy to see as much through the deep blue skin tone and the red hearts painted over his eyes.

He was dressed in a jester's outfit, coloured in royal blue with a few black square-shaped panels, and bright yellow collar around his neck that extended into drapes that hung off his shoulders, and with oversized boots even for his feet. Overall the outfit including the fool's cap came in a colour scheme that struck the human as strongly resembling that of another jester he recently met. He even had Jevil's black and blue cape hanging off his shoulders right below the collar.

"My smooth and feathered friends, I give you: Jandsome!"

The man bowed to the two of them. "Thank you, thank you!" When he came closer, he put on a wide grin and began raising his legs very far, stepping on one of the table, and circling the two and their euphoric guest host by stepping from table to table. "I am Jandsome, traveling jester. I move about from place to place and bring mischief and entertainment wherever I go. My, my, you two do look so very puzzled." He was speaking with a deliberately heightened pitch, so as to fit his role.

He began circling a little closer around their table, by walking on top of the chairs adjacent to their table rather than the tables themselves. "And so young, too. Are you lost? Are you looking for your mommies?"

Now, Berdly raised a finger and spoke for the first time since the two arrived here. "We're a little too old for that."

At this point, he jumped off the chairs and stood right next to them, while their guest host excused himself and left to stand further in the corner, waiting in case they needed anything. "But far from it. You are lost and look like you want to go home. How is that any different?" The two exchanged glances, but neither of them had much of an answer. "You see? But if you don't, you can prove me wrong. Here, take this."

Jandsome fumbled around in his costume and pulled out a little metal contraption. It was a little box, small enough to fit into one hand and had nothing on it except a red button. "This will take you right home. As soon as you press the button. Although, if you are not a pair of lost children looking for their mommies, you will find your way back home without pressing it. That way you will..."

"Hey!" Jandsome had just handed it over to the very hesitant looking bird, and the human was already ripping it out of Berdly's hand and holding Berdly with his other hand so that both of them would be teleported. He was not going to let an opportunity to get home like this slip just for some stupid dare. He immediately pressed the button, only to hear a loud cracking noise and let go from the painfully hot device. He stepped back and let it fall on the floor.

By the time he did, smoke was already coming out of it. The jester immediately burst out into an obnoxious, cackling laughter and Berdly couldn't help but chuckle as well. He winked at the jester. "Okay, that was pretty funny."

"He pressed it! Did you see the look on his face? He couldn't wait to press it for a second. So much for not being children. You're as much of a little mommasboy as I thought, aren'tcha?"

An evil grin crept up the bird's beak and he sat up on one of the tables to better level with the jester, who in turn stepped down onto the glittering floor. "Boy do you even know the start of it. Every day, his mom leads him to school by the hand and..." Kris for one, had heard the start of it and couldn't wait for it to get to the ending. So without a word, he left Berdly behind to keep gossiping with his new friend, while he looked around.

The dancers had since slowed down and broken the ring around the hall in favour of forming couples of male and female-dressed flowers and roses to perform slow ballroom dances instead.

"Hey! M'attends!" While he was about to leave through one of the corridors, the rose man in the suit ran after him. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere really. I'm just looking around. I can do that, right?"

"Mais bien sur! Be our guest and explore at your hearts content. If you want anything, ve have a whole menu of vegan delicacies to serve guests. Zey are magnifique, I promise."

Vegan, so no milk, so if there even was any chocolate, it wouldn't be worth eating. "Yes. I think I can pass."

The area around the corner led through a door into an empty wardrobe. And from there, there was a door to some kind of makeup room. That one contained another light. He touched it and felt whatever it was that it really did, happen. The makeup room was a bit strange though, in that instead of chairs and sinks, it only had bath tubs filled with dirt. If he hadn't taken Berdly's new friend as a cue to go exploring, he wouldn't have found the light.

Perhaps there really was a usefulness to looking around and talking to everyone he came across. At least doing more talking than he was used to do. Maybe taking a page or two from that book wasn't such a bad idea.

Back in the main hall, he approached the first couple of dancers dancing in the corner and interrupted their dance. "Hello."

The rose in a suit lifted up the lily in a dress, so that she could stand on her own legs instead of hanging in his arms. "Well hello to you too, visitor, did we do well?"

Kris nodded. "Yes. Could I ask you a question?"

The plants gave each other a perplexed look. "Why of course."

"Is there a 'dark fountain' or a 'fountain of darkness' anywhere in the area that you could think of?"

The plants exchanged another glance and answered with newfound confidence. "At the outer peak of Canyon City. Right in the courtyard beyond the mayor's office. You can see it from all over the city, isn't that where you come from?"

"Nope." He went a bit closer to try and whisper to them. "I think we're what you call 'lightners'."

Both plant creatures gasped and covered their mouths. For a moment, he was considering whether this was a mistake and whether he should have drawn his sword right now. Depending on their reaction, he might have. But they quickly realized that he had been whispering for a reason and did so themselves. They were almost glowing from the sheer anticipation. "Does that mean Christmas is finally going to come soon?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure either. But the sooner we get home, the sooner it might."

This was enough for the two to look each other in the eyes, hold hands and jump in place out of joy. Christmas really seemed to be all these plants cared about. But more importantly, now he had a lead on where to go. Canyon City.

Around the other corner, he only found a dead end. And within the corner within the corner, he found a strange black object. It was a triangle, as if someone had taken a cube and cut it in half. Except that on one of the flat sides, it was carved in a shape he recognized from building block toys, to help it join up and attach to whatever you were building with it. It was too light to be made of concrete or some metal as well.

He put it in his inventory, a small brown bag, the inside of which was always as big as it had to be to hold everything he put in it irrespective of its size. Back in the main hall, he approached and greeted a different couple to pick up where he left off with the other one. "Hello. Would you happen to know how to best get to Canyon City?"

The rose, with his arm wound around the other rose, pointed straight upwards. "Sure. Just get to the airport. I think we have a plane there. It's how people move back and forth."

"Really? It's that easy?"

"Sure. Haven't had anyone come here recently until Jandsome over there arrived though. Ever since those two nervous brawlers appeared, things have gotten a bit awkward up there."

"Awkward?"

Both plants nodded. "Yes. They're always on edge, but they never leave. It's almost as if they were waiting for someone."

"Interesting."

With everything he could be bothered to do done, he went back to Berdly and his new friend. Jandsome was sitting on one of the tables rolled together and slapping the table while laughing with an exaggerated snicker. "...and then, he wouldn't balance on the rope like the rest unless Mrs. Alphys held his hand all the way through."

They were still recounting old school stories. "Berdly, I was ten years old at the time." He had no problem keeping calm in situations like this, Berdly would regularly bring up stories like this at school as well. Only a lot less frequently than on the spree he was on now. He did feel like raining on his parade to try to get him to stop though.

"It's still funny!"

"Berdly, I know where to go now. We need to get going. We still have one physics problem left, remember?" At last, the two calmed down a bit. Jandsome jumped off the chair and adjusted his fool's cap. It had slipped a bit, and when Kris spotted that it did, he spotted an odd coloration where it had slipped off that was promptly covered up by the jester pulling it over the uncovered spot. "Also, don't forget, we still haven't found Scott. This is all stuff that still isn't done when we're back."

To his relief, the bird sighed, gave in and followed him up the stairs. There had to be a way to this airport somewhere along this trail. "Wait!" Now with even more of a pitch, the jester skipped after them and calmed down when he saw them stop. "I will be joining you. You two seem much too interesting for me to miss whatever mayhem you may be causing with that sword you drew before. Besides. I have nothing new to show those fine people here."

He leaped down the few stairs they had already climbed and glided along the floor, a bit into the middle of the hall. He then spun in place, bowing in all directions. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for those entertaining hours. I enjoyed most surprising my two new friends, which I will be accompanying on their way further."

Even if only for a short while, the pairs of dancers stopped to wave the three of them goodbye, but by the time they were further ascending the stairs, the dancers already resumed their performance without needing an audience. Even when they were long past the upper platform and far away enough for the music to turn inaudible for them, down in the distance, the band continued to play, the dancers continued to dance.

It felt like the plant creatures just wanted to do what they were there to do, whether it was to play music, or dance, it wasn't so much about them. Then again, they didn't do all this, until Kris and Berdly were in position to be surprised by them. It reminded him of something Ralsei had said on their travels through the card kingdom, about darkners wanting to fulfill their purpose for lightners. Could these roses and flowers have 'felt' that they were lightners?

On the upper platforms, there was another staircase on the other side of the hall. On the way, they asked a few more roses for the way to the airport and got directions. The next staircase led out of this smaller area within this abyss, and onto a very, very long stairway all the way up. And so the three of them ascended from the abyss. Away from the town built for Christmas, to which Christmas never came.

With little else to do but to keep making fun of Kris with Berdly, the oversized jester's giggling and nattering never stopped. While they went further and further up the seemingly endless path, Kris occasionally spotted one of those sticky platforms from before. From the distance, you could see how they they were curved, they sort of 'hung' there like rope bridges.

Eventually, the stairs led to an opening in a giant and proportionally very tall set of metal platforms, that ended in smoothly rounded arcs above and below it. The platforms they went onto looked like they were meant to drive on, but there were no vehicles. There were however, slopes that connected the platforms and allowed them to move up and down between them. Even the platforms above and below them were completely empty.

No people, no vehicles, and for an airport, it was terribly devoid of planes as well. When they wandered from pathway to pathway, the human started noticing the other two giggling behind him. When he stopped and turned around, they stopped as well. Both of them were very tense and trying very hard to keep their mouths shut. They were suppressing laughter. He said nothing, he just raised an eyebrow when looking at them.

Then they burst out in laughter so much, Berdly had to take a step back. With no shame, they pointed right at him and he didn't see what they were on about. His first instinct was to feel if there was something on his head, but there wasn't. He even turned around, nothing. He began feeling up all of his armor. Then, he finally found something.

There was something stuck on his back. He ripped it off and found it to be a little plastic disc that had a pink balloon, shaped like a giraffe attached to it. It was strangely light for what it was, he didn't feel it at all. "Very funny."

"It is! You're just not self-aware at all, are you?" Once he had thrown the balloon away, he touched up all of his back to find several more plastic discs with animal balloons. He looked back at Berdly, who was just keeping his finger pointed at him and kept laughing with this particularly angering smile. But he figured there was no point in doing anything but moving on.

There was something strangely unsettling about the weird, half-kneeling way Jandsome walked, just to level with the two of them a little. There generally was something unfitting about the tall, toned stature and the striking facial features being covered in what must have been makeup. He looked too human for it not to be.

Several stores further up, they finally spotted the plane Kris was looking for. It was a bit larger than your normal passenger's plane, but judging by the entrances and exits and its overall shape, it was one nonetheless. On their way to it, two figures leaned against metal bars and began to push themselves up and come their way when they spotted them.

One was a crocodile, with two 'belts' of golden metal spikes wrapped over his shoulders as if they were suspenders and like his partner, he was wearing a beige trilby and had a matching but too tight suit jacket forcibly wrapped and pulled over himself, so that the spikes had torn through the jacket and its tatters hung there - a mere shadow of what they were supposed to be. At least his trousers weren't ripped the same way.

His partner was a shark. Gills, overly wide mouth and everything. He was dressed in the same way as the crocodile, except that his hat hung off of the spiky, stuck-up strands of his purple mohawk hairstyle.

The crocodile clapped his hands. "There ye are!" He had a deep, grunty voice. It made sense, seeing as both him and the shark were almost as tall as Jandsome. "Light blue skin, dark blue hair, purple cape. Looks like we got our guy. At least one of 'em."

Both groups stopped with a few metres between them. Kris didn't know what feeling they gave him, but it wasn't good. "Were you expecting me?"

The crocodile nodded and gave him a subtle wink. "Can say that again. Ya wanna seal the fountain, right?"

"Yes?"

"Then you're in luck. Ya got friends in high places. We got ya a ride. Come along." He gave them a nod in the plane's direction, and both strangers simultaneously turned around and went right its way. No-one said a word the entire way there. And the first thing Kris noticed upon entering the plane from the set-up staircase, was that it was a lot more roomy inside than expected. The entire back area was open, but also empty.

Save for the few rows in the very front, all seats were removed, there was no machinery in the back, no separate storage area, nothing. It was for the most part hollow inside. "Here, take a seat. Big guy can sit in the back. We take it from here."

They were glad to be able to relax a bit, even though Kris couldn't help but be paranoid around those two. 'Brawlers' as one of the rose people in Christmas Town had called them. They took the seats next to a window on the left, the furthest in the back, so that Jandsome could lean over the seats from behind. They could hear the engines firing up. This really was an actual plane with engines. Though even with the engine running, it was going to take a while until they were ready to take off.

The plane already stood pretty close to the outer edge of the platform, so they were going to have to turn another round on the platform before they had enough room to gather enough momentum to lift off properly. As of yet, you couldn't see anything through the windows but the platforms and the dark. Kris opened up his inventory to look at the plastic piece he had found further down.

Nothing else here followed a pattern it fit into, not the plants, not the walls here, it must have come from somewhere else. Before he could figure what to do next though, he was being tipped on his shoulder. "Hey!" It was Berdly and judging by the look on his face, he was still miffed about Kris not further involving him with what was going on here. "This the point for more 'answers' now?"

What was he supposed to tell him? He had only been to the dark world once, he didn't know what rules applied or how it all worked. He tried just shrugging it off. "Oh come on. Give me something. What did you see other than that stuff you talked about before?"

"Well after we met Ralsei, we got to a big field with purple grass."

Immediately, the bird's eyes narrowed again. "Mmmhm...purple grass..."

"And a field with black and red tiles. And all along our way, we were attacked by jewel people, and women with hearts for faces who like flirting, and Susie made friends with a little blue guy." He tried thinking of more. "Then we went through a red blocky forest, and met a white 'thing' with three heads, a bit like the roserus from before."

"What's a ro - ah I get it."

"She was called clover. And she had three 'leaves' on all three faces." The bird's dismissive expression only grew stronger as he went on. "And in the end, we were captured, got to the top of card castle and beat Lancer's dad the King."

"Susie mentioned that name, right? What does Lancer look like?"

"The little blue guy."

"He wouldn't happen to have something like this somewhere would he?" He began drawing something in the air, with the vague shape of a a stem at the bottom and an upside-down heart attached to it."

"Yes."

"That's a Spade. Those are playing cards, Kris. The 'clover' is a club. Like in the abandoned classroom. It didn't happen. You and Susie just 'wiggled things' in the closet, both got hit on the head and wound up in there somehow." This 'wiggling things' thing was going to haunt him for years, wasn't it?

He could see where Berdly was coming from. He had recognized the pattern himself. But having fallen into the Dark World again made it hard for him to believe it didn't exist. He stared at Berdly for a while thinking about what to answer, but then just turned up to Jandsome, who was grinning down at them from above the leans of their seats. "What do you think? Is the Dark World real?"

The jester's hard-to-read grin grew all the wider. The hearts on his eyes were flawless, as if they weren't painted on, or painted very thoroughly. "Oh don't involve little old me. I find this much too amusing to interrupt."

Thanks for nothing, discount Jevil. But that left open a question to him. "Then how did Susie know about Ralsei?"

"Ralsei?"

"Yeah, I described him and she knew his name."

"Who is Ralsei now?"

Kris sighed. They were going to argue in circles if he tried recounting everything. "It doesn't matter. You wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Don't just shut down the conversation like that!" The angry bird grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

He had an idea. He opened his inventory. "You recognized the playing cards. What about this?" He pulled out the black cornerpiece he found in Christmas Town.

Upon taking it in his hands and feeling the inside opening in the fitting shape to attach it as part of some building block toy vehicle or building, his face began to grow tense. He had a strange look on his face that Kris failed to read. "N-no. Where'd you find that?"

"On the floor, but it was out of place, so it seemed important."

Berdly handed it back, but the moment Kris had it dangling above his bag, Berdly made sure to push it back where he had taken it from. "Don't just pick up other people's stuff."

"What I was trying to say is, with Susie, we had all this stuff in the class room. What about you and now? Does anything we've seen strike you as familiar?"

The bird raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"I don't know, the roses? The music? Anything? What exactly is in your closet anyway?"

"Personal space, Kris. I lock it for a reason. You need to figure out respecting other people's personal space." This sounded more like a cop-out than anything to Kris. Now he really wanted to know what was in that closet. At least now that the constant threat of further inquiring about the closet hung over both of their heads, Kris at last had some rest from those incessant demands to hear absolutely everything he recalled from the day before.

In the time that Kris and Berdly spent talking, the plane had circled around the platform to get into a good position. At last, they were going to leave this pitch-black hole. Then again, it was the 'Dark' world, so it was probably going to be dark wherever they went. "And so it begins!" The jester jumped in place and almost stopped putting this weird squeak into his voice. "If the Dark World is this foreign to you, feast your eyes upon what comes next!"

Through the loudspeaker, a calm voice that was gladly neither of the two shady characters that led them there, announced that they were about to lift off and that passengers should fasten their seat belts.

And with the plane in a good position to do so, it finally accelerated and rolled off the platform at full speed. At last, they got to see the splintery cliffs pass by and see what was on the other side. The dark realm outside of the closet was - as expected, very dark. Through the tiny window, they gazed down the coastal area of what must have been a black sea. It wasn't just that it was dark, the water itself was pitch black and only visible through the contours and silhouettes of its waves.

In the distance, they could see very, very tall cliffs with a faint light shining onto their peak at the top. Bright enough to just spot it, but too faint to actually come from there. When it took a gradual turn to the right, Jandsome pointed out of the window and onto an unimaginably wide set of red-ish cliffs and ravines only just peeking out of the sea. Two rows of them at that. And there it was, at an upper part of the canyon, on the opposite side from where they were, the dark fountain, with its black blurb streaming right up into the sky. "This is it! Canyon City! The city of dreams! Where no day is like another and yet you will find the same places and the same people every day. The tales of this place were carried far and wide, beyond this dark realm and to others."

"Others?" What the very tall man implied didn't quite fit with Kris' understanding of how the dark world worked. "Are there other dark realms than this one?"

The jester nodded. "Of course, of course. Many. I am not from this one either."

He wasn't sure whether he was misunderstanding him. It startled him enough to make him stutter. "And-and they're active? Now?"

"Of course, why not?" It made no sense to him. He wasn't sure when exactly the pertinent part was told to him, but he could have sworn the understanding he got from Ralsei's explanation made this impossible. More dark realms than two and even more, that wasn't possible, was it?

As if that hadn't been bad enough, he also had a bad feeling about how those two 'hosts' of theirs were moving to the back to open some compartment in a wall, way back. Not to mention that from what the three of them could see through the window, they weren't flying towards the city or making any efforts towards turning around to do so. In fact, Jandsome was very apt in commenting on this. "...and all the stories you hear from there are - aaand we just passed the last airfield and are flying away from it. What is going on?"

The plane was making a turn, but not to the left to circle the airfield, but slightly to the right. Further into the ocean and they were slightly gaining altitude, not losing it.

Then, after rummaging through some side compartment, the brawlers went back to the front and passed the three of them with big backpacks in their hands. Kris only shot Berdly a quick glance, when suddenly, they could feel the pull from the plane slightly changing course once again. "W-we don't have to..." A nervous voice from the cockpit shouted, and two monsters were dragged out of it by force and handed two more backpacks.

Which upon closer inspection, weren't backpacks. They were parachutes.

"Wanna get shot and thrown outta the plane? Get on with it!" The crocodile pushed the two timid dogs further to the left-hand door they opened, leaving the interior of the plane at the mercy of the pressing outside winds. And the moment the trembling pilots had wound their arms through the holdings and not even fastened them yet, the brawlers kicked them out.

At once, Kris undid his safety belt, got up and tried to make out the situation in the front. The two Brawlers had their pistols drawn and with their parachutes already fastened to their backs and ready for use. "Sorry, fellas!", the shark shouted against the wind. "Ain't personal, Don Gatore sends his regards!" They paid little attention to him and jumped right after the two pilots before he could get to them. Without even regarding the hats they lost to the heavy winds on their way out.

"What are you - hey!" Before the just as agitated bird could rush past him and get anywhere near the brawlers, they were already outside and opening up their chutes. Seeing no point in further risking their lives by keeping it open, Kris ran towards the door hanging on the outside, tried grabbing hold of it and almost lost hold of the floor. He would have, if their tall new friend hadn't come to help and pulled it shut with a surprising routine.

"We're dead!", he heard Berdly shout. He was in panic, and when Kris and Jandsome followed him to the cockpit, they realized that he wasn't exaggerating. With the pilots gone and a belt strapped to hold the steering component and something below together, the passenger flight's nose was slowly pointing further and further down.

To make it worse, the plane was tilting to its right side as well. They were all latching onto door frames and grips to not lose balance and fall over. Then, Jandsome forced his way past Berdly, ripped Kris' sword out of his hand and struggled his way to the pilots' seats. "Let me through! It's a model I recognize! I might know how to fly this thing!"

As quickly as he could given the worsening turbulence, he bent over the seat, cut through the belt and began flipping a few switches and grabbing hold of the yoke. They immediately felt the pressure pull the two of them down when the plane began adjusting its course back to a more even one. "Yes! It's exactly the model I...I can fly it!" They were rocked to the side a bit, when the plane rapidly adjusted its tilt back to being evened out.

After that, he made a whole range of other adjustments on some specific parts of the enormous and confusingly complicated panel, which seemed to even out the flight even more from how it felt. They rigged it to crash but I think I got it under..." The newfound relief didn't last for more than a second though. "Uh oh..."

Now that Kris and Berdly could stand again, they followed the jester into the cockpit to watch what he was doing from up close. "What? What's going on?"

"Well the good news is, this one runs on batteries, so most of the systems didn't give in despite the bad news."

"And the bad news?"

"This!" The jester pointed at one display with its pointer as far to the left as it could be, and then put his hand back onto the yoke, which he never let go unless he had to. "They packed barely enough fuel to pass by the city without landing on it. We're too far out by now, we're going too fast and too low to turn it around and not crash. Tilting it as much as I'd have to without fuel is too dangerous! I can't turn us back to the city!"

So they were left to gliding in the same direction, further and further into the sea. At least as far as it was possible with a model as heavy as this. From the looks of it though, it seemed to suffice for a little while. As long as they maintained a stable forward course, they had a little while to come up with something. "Better get ready for the worst!" When the jester hit another button, compartments above all seats opened up and life jackets dropped down and hung right where the passengers would normally sit. Whenever he didn't have to follow up with something Berdly said, Kris took up the opportunity to grab those life vests and try preparing them to jump off the plane, should it hit the water.

He wasn't given much time for that anyhow.

"Over there!" Berdly stretched out his finger to a tiny speck that Kris and Jandsome couldn't see until quite a while later. Those avian eyes must have been handy in seeing things in the distance. Then again what did he need his glasses for? The speck he was pointing at, wound up being land. An island. Not a continent, but it was better than landing in the water. It didn't have any mountains either, it was mostly flat. Good thing it wasn't raining, or else seeing it would have been impossible. "You think you can land on that?"

"I think so..." Jandsome had the plane fly a slight curve, possibly lose some velocity to gain more room for losing altitude until it was low enough for him to have a go at landing it. He reached for something specific the two of them wouldn't have found, and announced that the wheels were now out again. They did get a little too fast for comfort, but by slightly extending the curve, their jester-turned-pilot somehow managed to even it out so that slowly, but surely, they reached the ground.

The entire place rocked under the bumps of Jandsome's desperate attempt at having it roll along the surface enough to lose its momentum. Stumbling over a particularly uneven part rocked the entire plane enough for them to worry about it flipping onto its side and for Berdly to even get launched up and fall over, but from there, they could eventually navigate along a rocky, but mostly even landscape between a beach and green fields.

When finally, it slowly came to a halt, Kris was overcome with relief so much he couldn't resist walking back to the front row seats, sit down on one of them in spite of a big yellow vest hanging in front of his face, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. At least this crisis had been averted, albeit no thanks to his help.

Not long after him, the two others came back, just as relieved from the sounds of it. "Phew, that was a close one...so...wait..." Berdly couldn't keep himself from asking, now that the immediate danger was averted. "Why do you know how to fly a plane? And a passenger flight no less?" Kris couldn't agree more. Jandsome had no problem operating this panel, with which he and Berdly wouldn't have known where to start. What kind of medieval jester doubled as at least a semi-profiessional pilot?

Jandsome, interrupted in his thoughts, was startled a bit by that question. "Ah, yes. Uhm. Night classes."

"There's night classes for piloting Boeings?"

"Yes. Of course."

"..okay. If you say so. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've seen today." When Kris opened his eyes, the other two were already stepping down the extended stairs of the door, out onto the field. The ground was very scratchy if you dragged your shoes along it, but it didn't quite feel like sand or gravel, more like fabric being torn. The insurmountable dark waves surrounded them as far as the eye could see.

Only far, far in the distance, so far away it was barely visible, he could see a faint light shine down a distant set of cliffs similar to the one he had seen on the way here. In fact, upon wandering for a bit through the gloomy landscape that surrounded them, he realized that the 'beach' to their right didn't have any sand on it at all.

Even when removing a glove and grasping a bit of it with his hand, it felt more like rope, or smooth strands of fur woven together, and merely having a more bright texture to it than the 'grass' the other two were on. Not to mention it was so dark, you could barely see the difference unless you went really close.

For the most part, you could only tell the 'texture' of any place from the coloring of their silhouettes against the light that came - yet again - from nowhere as far as he could discern. "Still. Could you explain to me why that choice? What made you go from making jokes to 'I might try my luck piloting passenger flights'? Seems like a pretty big change."

"It was in case I needed to switch careers?" Jandsome didn't sound quite so convinced of his own answer either.

It wasn't as silent as in the pitch black cliffs they were in before, but there wasn't much to hear either. Only the rushing of the waves washing onto the shore and the steps of the other two. They were alone here. Alone in the middle of nowhere. To make it worse, there were a few hills here and there, but no mountains, no caves, no trees, if they found no way out of here, they were pretty much lost.

Berdly's grin widened. "What? There not enough medieval courts to hang around at?"

At last, some annoyed grumbling revealed that the jester was beginning to lose patience with the bird as well. "Yes. I assume you could say so."

With little direction, mostly in wait to see if they found something or came up with a way forward, the three wandered along a landscape that only just peeked out of the endless expanses of a pitch-black ocean. Kris followed the other two, but every few metres, he checked the ground again. These interruptions took up so much time, the other two had to slow down for him to keep up. Eventually, the bird turned around to tip on his shoulder. "Hey! What are you doing anyway?"

He raised his head, but as he often did, didn't look Berdly in the eyes. "It's the carpet. There was a carpet in the middle of your room, right?"

Berdly didn't think of it much, except that Kris was acting strange - again. He raised one eyebrow at the human's peculiar antics. "Yeah, why?"

"Then the pattern is holding up. It's like in the abandoned classroom." He looked up at the void that surrounded the air above the sea. You could barely see through it at all, and you couldn't see the places they were at previously. "Hey." He ignored the bird and went over to slightly pull on the absent-minded jester's silky costume. "Could you tell me, where roughly everything was? The cliffs, the city?"

Although he was standing straight before, Jandsome quickly crouched down to level with the younger human and slipped back into his more hunched-together pose. "Why of course. The cliffs were that way." With the other arm, he pointed slightly to the right of that. "And that would be where the city is."

"Hm..." Kris stood next to him, pointed one arm between the two directions Jandsome was pointing in and pointing the other at first in the exact opposite one, then a little further to the right of it. Straight towards the distant cliffs, the only ones visible from here, as well as the only light source visible from here, however faint it was. "...a little less than a hundred and eighty degrees."

"What in blazes are you on about?" Considering they had no idea where they were or where to go, Berdly was sure easy to upset if you didn't pay attention to his implicit plan of 'just moving forward'. "I'm talking to you, look at me!" He grabbed Kris by the shoulder and made him turn his way. "And get the hair out of the way, for crying out loud."

Kris frowned, but he did as he was told. This time. Then he pointed at Berdly. "We're in your room."

"What?"

He ripped himself free of the feathered hand that held him in place and headed a few steps towards where the coast used to lie until they had marched quite a bit further inland and pointed at the cliffs in the distance. "It's like in the abandoned classroom. Everything is here. That over there." He pointed at the faint light in the distance and then looked back at the two. "It's the table lamp. That whole thing over there..."

He drew an arch in the air with his hand, covering from his point of view, an entire set of cliffs that they could barely see if it weren't for the light. "... that's the table. And all this..." He hopped up and down where he stood. "...you know why it feels like strings and cloth? because it is. It's the carpet."

And then he went back to Jandsome to point in the directions the jester had frozen in place pointing at. "And then the cliffs would be the closet, that's why they're so much darker than the ocean. It's around the corner from the table lamp, the light doesn't get there."

"And the city?"

"You had these big red boxes, right? And what colour would you say a canyon has, like the one we passed?"

He did startle the disbelieving bird for a little at least. "...red..." But mere moments after that, he shook his head at what Kris was implying. "Even then, that's all nonsense!"

"You mean nonsense the same way as being trapped in a 'dark world', with suits of armour, swords, guns, different colours, us having these bright colours when there's no light, giant rose attack dogs, dancing flower people, court jesters who can fly airplanes..."

"Yes, yes, yes I get the point, geez. Where are you going with this anyway?"

"Any darkners we meet are going to be objects from your room. And the city is going to be those boxes. What is in those boxes?" They proceeded to walk further towards where the city presumably was. Berdly stayed silent for quite some time while doing so. "The fountain is in there, we're going to see it in some way anyway."

The bird mumbled some probably not very nice things, but he did give in eventually. "Old toys. They're toy boxes from when I was younger." The human's eyes widened. Toy boxes? Those things were trunks. How many toys did he have? What kinds of toys did he have? Actually, now Berdly's reaction to seeing the plastic corner piece Kris now fumbled out of his bag again made more sense. And upon seeing it, the annoyed bird nodded.

"Yes, building blocks. I used to play a lot with building blocks. You happy now?" Well, at least that was something for when Berdly would go back to asking him about all things Dark World. Speaking of which. "Can you explain the part with the fountain?"

"When me and Susie were in the Dark World, we escaped by sealing the dark fountain. Ralsei explained it with this prophecy about a human, a monster and a prince from the dark. If the same prophecy works here like last time, all we need is a prince."

"...a prince?"

"Like Lancer or Ralsei."

Berdly sighed. "Again with those two. What if we don't meet them?"

"We'll just have to find a different prince. Or maybe it doesn't even work that way. Ralsei wasn't there when me and Susie sealed it. Maybe we don't need a prince and all it takes is a monster and a human.."

"I would have liked those answers to be a bit more definitive."

"Well I don't have definitive answers to everything, that's why I don't like it if you keep asking questions." He didn't notice until afterwards that he was raising his voice.

"All right, I get it, no need to get worked up over this." But it was too late, he already was. At least the extended silence that followed this exchange helped a little to amend that.


	4. Of Broken Dreams

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 04

Of Broken Dreams

* * *

The black waves had a downright hypnotic effect on Kris. Maybe he shouldn't have stared at them during their silent march across the beach on the other side of the island. Then again, it wasn't like there was much else to look at, everything but the island and the light above the cliffs in the distance was obscured by the dark. When it had begun, the quiet that settled between them was a blessing.

It freed Kris from the incessant onslaught of snarky comments and questions he couldn't answer to satisfaction, but as time went on, the more ground they covered with no visible way of getting off this island emerging, the more it began to wear down on all three of them. The island was too big to overlook as a whole from any given point, but it wasn't big enough to give them much more area too explore either.

The jester had tried to lighten the mood by making strange hand gestures in front of Kris' face, which left behind a fake mustache under his nose. But this joy at Kris' expense didn't last for long either. Slowly, but surely, the creeping realization that they were out of options took hold in all three of them. For quite some time, they were wandering along what Jandsome claimed was the part of the coast directly adjacent to the city.

And albeit only barely, they could even see that this was true with their own eyes. There just was no way over, or any way off this island for that matter.

Eventually, Berdly stopped moving, as did everyone else because of it. "Ugh, it doesn't look like there's any way over." He turned to Kris. "Now what?" He put his hands together behind his back, came closer and swung his head left and right with every sentence.

"Any more grand insights about the dark world? Any special tricks you got? Any game-changing rules I should know of? Anything to suggest that we aren't - you know - STRANDED WITH NO WAY OUT? What in hell's name are we going to do?" He covered his face and sat down on one of the scratchy 'rocks'.

Kris brought along a few strands of the fabric the island was made of and tried rolling them together. "If we just used the whole island to weave a really long rope...", but he was interrupted before he could go on.

Berdly pointed out all the obvious pitfalls this idea had. "Say we made this rope, how do we get it there, huh? Do we swim? Might as well not make a rope and just swim right over why don't we? Not like we're going to freeze to death even with life vests. What's next, huh? Maybe we can go all MacGyver and re-purpose the plane's jet and hull to craft a motorboat with all those welders, hammers and boxcutters WE DON'T HAVE. Then you do this thing where you pull a shield out of thin air and we just surf right over." He got up and wandered towards the open sea with his arms wide open. "I don't know why I assumed you had any idea what we were doing, you bumbling idiot! You're as useless with this..."

He slowly spun a circle around himself. "...whatever this is - you're as useless with this as you are with school work or anything else for that matter! If I were here with Noelle instead of you, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place! Her not being here to help is one thing, but being stuck with you of all people that's the worst part!" Kris said nothing. He just listened. He listened while projecting his mind into a better place.

He pictured himself with Berdly in a golden hall, surrounded by pillars. Built into the walls were stained glasses depicting him torturing the bird with all manner of archaic instruments, and in the middle, he held him down. Stabbing at Berdly's throat again and again and again until he just collapsed into dust as Monsters did when they died. It was never serious, but imagining it was, always helped him calm down. "I mean geez! What are we going to do?"

Kris for one, didn't touch any lights upon coming here. He could go back if they genuinely didn't find a way. But he didn't know anything about this 'Don Gatore' person the two brawlers mentioned, and if they wanted the three of them dead, it was probably the best if the Don thought they were.

"What am I going to do?"

"At ease, my friend, calm down." The jester approached him with open hands, but it was in vain.

At this point, the main reason Kris didn't just move things back was more that he enjoyed watching Berdly despair the way he was right now. "Oh please, anything!" Berdly dropped on his knees, put his hands together and looked up at the black night sky. "Please, Angel, send me a sign! Anything to help me get away from this moron behind me! Anything to set me free, I beg you!"

The moment he said this, an ear-shattering thunder made the three of them flinch and a lightning bolt struck the water in front of Berdly. Where it struck, a single white explosion a little off the coast left behind rays of golden light that extended all along the water and to their island. Choirs of unseen angels sung to the appearance of a figure at the heart of the light. "Fear not, distressed lightners!"

It floated closer to the now more attentive group, all of which got up and tried to get a better look at him. The figure was an eagle, dressed in several layers of extravagant robes. The parts where they ended were lined in furs, the entirety was woven over with golden threads. Gemstones of all kinds hung off on various points of his clothing and were attached to the rings and necklaces he wore in excess.

And with a crown on top, and mounted onto it, a golden plaque displaying a popularized symbol commonly accepted to visualize the core of an atom and the electrons circling around it. "All your worries are now without warrant. All your prayers have now been answered. For it is I: The Hawk King."

Some more curious, some more in awe, they came closer to the fast approaching figure. "Who are you?", the bird finally asked after he was mere metres away from him.

The hawk spoke with a echo to his voice, as if he was speaking inside a large temple or church with tall and wide walls. "I am a being from the brink of creation itself, and come to you to bestow upon you my infinite wisdom." The Hawk King held a large tome in his right hand, which he opened up to search for a specific page. "What truths, my friends, do you seek to begin your journey of wisdom with?"

Berdly raised an eyebrow. "Could you tell us how to get off this island and to the city?"

The Hawk King grinned and shook his head. "Please, such trivialities no longer matter, now that I am here. There are matters of greater importance, like the secret behind the alignment of the stars, the question between the heat death or the cycle of expansion and contraction of the universe, the nature of black holes, the prospects of space curvature..."

"Yes, but is there a way to get to the city or not?"

The King was startled, lowered himself but also floated a little further away. "Well, yes, but that no longer matters. You now have access to infinite knowledge."

"Is there a way to the city?" Berdly kept pressing this Hawk King on the thing that the three of them cared about.

And as expected, the spirit was getting more and more agitated. "It doesn't matter! You can become omniscient! The greatest mysteries of the universe will soon unravel before your very eyes."

"But we want to get to the city."

The eagle raised his arm and above him appeared images of cities thriving with floating vehicles, and then a time lapse of their decay. "Entire civilizations have seen their dusk and dawn, searching for the answers I can provide!"

The bird waved all these offers for knowledge they didn't need away in one clear swipe. "Look, we just. Want. To get. To. The City."

The resigned king took a deep breath and sighed. "Fine. Come along. I will show you the way." He began floating right past them, to a place further inward between the hills that they hadn't come across. On their way to where they met the hawk, the three of them had taken a path along the beach around some of the 'grass' in hopes of finding a way over.

Judging by where they were going, exactly that was a complete mistake, as embedded between the hills, they arrived on an uneven, solid surface with a big yellow dome in the middle. Once they arrived, the Hawk King led them to stand on the end of the white platform that was opposite from where the city lay. "Beneath your feet lies a wondrous contraption, brought to us not long ago, by the lightners.

Once I direct it to begin, its golden light will form a straight path and guide you to the location you seek." The moment he finished that very sentence, the ground beneath them shook and soon, the solid platform they were on began to rise up until it was above all the hills. The yellow dome in the middle began to light up like a giant lamp.

Then, in an upwards line that turned flat a little further, as wide as the dome, a straight yellow ray of light began extending itself in the direction opposite to them. "Do not fear, it will act as a bridge and see you safely across the water."

The jester was the first to raise his boot and carefully place it on the light, only to notice that indeed, he wound up standing on a curved slope that followed the path of the light that extended itself further and further onto the sea. Once they saw him 'walk' into the air with his feet never falling beneath the light, the other two started stepping on it as well. Keeping one foot on the light, the jester spun around to face the hawk, gave him a half-serious salute and bowed. "You have our thanks, good sir."

Perhaps this Hawk King was going to be useful. "So, your majesty, could you tell us where we find a prince or get to the city hall?" The hawk didn't so much as dignify him with an answer. "What happened to 'I'm an omniscient being'?"

"You rejected the fundamentals of cosmic knowledge and continue to do so, you do not deserve to delve into the same pool for trivialities. You got your wish. I will now move on in search of less ignorant disciples." Clearly upset about their previous interactions, he began to float away, along side the ray of light, straight to the same destination they were heading for.

Silently, they followed him. Along the light that kept stretching out all the way to the shoreline on the other side of the sea. The silence wore them down about as much as it did, when it was their creeping desperation to find a way off this island, only that now, it did for other reasons.

Jandsome made use of the fact that Kris was now in a bit more of a rush to move forward and snuck over to Berdly to tug at the shoulders of his jacket. "Say...", he began to whisper. "...all the jokes are fun, but you seemed a little too serious just before."

The bird snarled at him. "I was."

Jandsome tilted his head, still bent slightly over the bird, thanks to his height. "Oh please, we were just teasing him weren't we?"

They both slowed down to gain a little distance from Kris. "You haven't spent years of school with this guy. You want to know some thing about him? You think I'm just teasing him? You think that mommasboy stuff is just a joke? You know, he's gotten a lot more talkative ever since we came here, but he's really different actually. He's that weirdo everyone knows who won't talk to you unless he has to. The one that won't look you in the eye unless you tell him to.

Sometimes if you talk to him, he'll only answer in gestures if at all. And he's bad at school. So bad, a close friend of mine spends so much time putting together problems and quizzes of her own - as if she was a teacher - just so she could help him along, and sometimes, he doesn't even let her get a chance to use it. And at some point, our class moves past it with our material. So it just winds up material she made to help him and never got to use.

Wasted efforts that no-one was forcing her to make. It just winds up catching dust in a shelf in my room. He's a mommasboy because he's got no-one else to turn to. He's only here because our teacher had this weird sudden idea to scrap our old assignment and force me to be his partner. And he deserves everything he gets. I can't wait to make it back home so we can get that last problem over with.

I might as well kick him out right afterwards. I don't even care if it's four in the morning or something when we get back. No way I'm letting this guy have the mattress. Or the bed for that matter."

"Surely, you are exaggerating. Do you mean to say you want to throw him out into the cold of the night?"

"Why not? Would suit him right."

The jester wagged his index finger. "This sounds more severe than mere discontent over some school work. It is not healthy to harbour such grudges. What good is a prank or a joke, if your mind is poisoned and can't enjoy it? Besides." He began walking in his otherwise more usual half-kneeling fashion, moved closer and warded the already distant human off with one hand to whisper a little more quietly.

"It feels to me like there is more to this grudge of yours than only the impressions a shy person would leave. This friend of yours. You said it is a 'her'. I can't help but notice the two of you to be in that age where..." He stopped for a moment, because Berdly adjusted his hat so he could shoot the jester a deadly glare, and the red hearts drawn over them only annoyed him all the more when he did so.

It wasn't quite as intimidating as the generally non-threatening bird would have liked it to be though. "I'm just saying. Makes me curious. This friend of yours, tell me about her."

Berdly simply rolled his eyes off to the side, sighed and fixated Jandsome again. "Some other time, maybe, okay?" That seemed to be enough of an answer. The jester grinned even more than he did before, backed off, put his hands up and shrugged. With their private conversation settled for the time being, they sped up to join up with Kris again. He only understood bits and pieces of what Berdly said when Jandsome was the only one whispering.

The closest thing to a building they spotted outside of the gorge ahead, was an airfield, except it was fenced off and so small, it barely had enough space to land the one plane that was standing there. Upon getting closer, it became obvious that this plane was significantly larger than theirs. If Jandsome entered this one, he wouldn't have had to hunch forwards like he had to in the brawlers' one.

There were a few little roads leading down onto ropes and what seemed to be an elevator big enough for move vehicles. It wasn't until they left behind the loud rushing of waves crashing against the coastline, that the jester ran ahead, just before they began to see red rock of the terrifyingly big gorge they were about to enter, stopped and bowed before them. They had to admit to themselves, the loose clothes and the cape did give his demeanour a bit of a majestic air.

"Gentlemen, I give you Canyon City!" What they saw upon coming closer, they had only ever seen on photos shot to attract tourists. This canyon was every bit as wide and quite a bit deeper than it looked on scenic photos. Layers of buildings and pavements were built on top of each other, and you could only see that they were through what little wasn't covered in the top layer.

In the middle, there was hole with a little more than a third of the canyon's radius, of course roughly matching the lengthy shape of the entire landscape. And off in the distance, there was a whole other canyon that they couldn't even look into from here. "Worry not about the aggrieved eagle. There are places here, where one can learn anything they care to know, without conditions on the perceived importance of what they learn."

They followed the ramp down into the upper level of the city. The pavement felt smooth, as did the walls when slid along. But in terms of the colouring and the design, the buildings here were made to give the impression that this wasn't the wealthiest part of town. The walls of what seemed to be apartment buildings inspired by the more coloured districts of a world-famous coastal city, were painted red with white lines drawn over where all the 'bricks' connected.

And while the walkway wasn't as rough as a real one in the light world was, it was dirty. There were traces of some gray substance spread across it, and in the corners between the road and the walkway, they kept spotting empty needles. Kris couldn't help but peek into the narrow alleyways between buildings each time they came by one, and eventually, he wound up regretting that.

A shock took hold of his spine when he stumbled from being grabbed by his lower leg. "Some change!" A sad sight lay on the ground, right next to the three shocked travelers. At first sight, it looked like a monster. It was a green bird, dressed in nothing but a torn shirt and short trousers. Every spot not covered by what little the clothes did cover, was dirty, and some of the plastic slides that made up his 'feathers' were falling off. He kept holding Kris' leg with his strange hand.

It wasn't like a monster's or human's hand. It didn't have five fingers like any normal person in the light world did. It had two very flat, very wide mutually opposite digits. Of course, the hand made him realize it. If this was a city made of building blocks, people like this poor man were the corresponding figures. "You guys got some dust? Or some change...anything!"

He continued to plea and wouldn't let go of Kris' leg. He tried tugging it away several times, and eventually with one big pull, got rid of the beggar.

What was that just now? The queasy feeling he was already getting from the unkept roads and suspicious lack of cars passing by. They had barely rushed around a corner to get away from the beggar, when someone else pushed himself off the wall of the building to stand in their way. A visibly bigger figure than the few 'monsters' they saw walking along in the distance here and there. It was a shark in a trenchcoat who tipped his trilby to greet them.

With a hand that did have ordinary fingers. "Hey guys. You look like you got some cash." He opened up his coat and revealed bags of a grey, powdery substance. "You guys want some dust? It's the best stuff! Take you on a grand journey"

Before Kris and Berdly had any time to figure out what was going on here, the jester shoved his way past them and gestured the stranger to back off. "I assure you, my friends and I already have had our fair share of a grand journey. Pardon us if we pass on your offer this time. Have a good evening!" He had to physically push the two hesitant and confused teenagers.

They both lived isolated in an ethnically homogenous suburb inhabited entirely by Monsters. Sure, they heard about drugs through the internet, but they never had problems like someone in their idyllic town selling them, so they weren't sure how to deal with this. "Move along."

It took them a little longer than the mentally prepared jester to figure out what was happening here, but it didn't take too long for Berdly to spell out the obvious question that hung over them ever since they passed that dealer. "Stuff like this guy before...is that normal here?"

"In much smaller amounts, yes. Short while ago, it got much, much worse. By now, this is normal. Believe me, it's best for you if you just avoid it." The darkness and the lack of streetlights that weren't broken didn't help with the already uncomfortable air between them. They were lucky enough for their surroundings turning a little less grisly as they moved on.

More and more often, a street light actually worked for a change, and occasionally, a vehicle passed by along the street, although they weren't the kinds of vehicles Kris first expected. When the unusual shape started to become noticeable, he began to pay attention. They were those kinds of vintage cars you only saw in car-themed museums or in movies made to cater to fascinations with western life many decades ago.

They came with a smooth, curved outer body in the front and back, but leading abruptly into a straight-upward window. There was no way they could fit Jansome into one of those cars if they wanted to. Once they got past a district with a few grocery stores, presumably for the low-quality living area they came through at first, they finally took a turn towards the inner area.

The path to the downward ramps led straight through a giant, dark-grey garage, with a lot of these cars using them. They passed by a lot more very unhealthy-looking monster-looking citizens, reclined within various niches and corners, some begging them for some change, but when Kris offered to give one of them some, Jandsome insisted the sorry-looking dog would only spend it on more dust.

They skipped more than one floor, and when they came out on the other side, they arrived in a much better-looking part of the city. It was a lot brighter here, thanks to something shining down on them that looked a lot like the moon. Except that it couldn't be the moon, because they weren't even on the top floor for one thing. It must have been some kind of lamp.

Immediately to both sides of the exit of the giant parking tower that appeared to extend from the bottom of the canyon, to the top, were wide-open areas. On their right, a white square and garden with a - granted - defunct fountain, but at at least it seemed a lot less grim than the state some other parts of the city were in. It was part of what led up to a large ivory building, the roof of which seamlessly led right into the ceiling that made up the ground of the floor above them.

To their left was a regular market square with comparably vague buildings lining its side and back. It wasn't that they weren't defined, they just seemed a bit too uniform and with no indicator for what the closed doors would have led to, if someone opened them. There even were a few stands, but they were all abandoned, thrown over, and broken.

This area was generally a little more densely populated from the looks of it. The buildings they saw in the distance in all directions had their lights on, and a lot more people were walking about on both squares and along the wide and much more busy road in the middle of the parking tower's exit. Things got a lot less roomy once they passed the wider area and made their way into one of the more regular looking streets, with closed shops in every direction they looked in.

And the shops weren't the only thing that appeared a little less present than in the more straightforward area. There were people around the squares. There weren't any here. And the buildings weren't decaying, but the streets were comparably short and both Kris and Berdly felt more and more paranoid with each turn they took. Increasingly often, Kris thought he spotted someone watching them from around the corner and retreating the moment they were being looked at.

And judging by how often he turned around to check on the two of them, Jandsome was more worried than he usually was as well.

It was only a question of time, until they all froze upon hearing the unmistakable sound of gunfire. One shot, and it wasn't here. They couldn't allow themselves to be ambushed by whoever was pulling the trigger though, so without even talking about it, they all rushed not away from the source of the shot, but towards it. When they got closer, they preferred to err on the safe side and stay very close to the walls and closed-off shop windows.

They all nigh-froze from being so tense out of worry of getting spotted. They froze all the more, but now with a stinging cold in their backs, when they heard the clicking sound of someone releasing his firearm behind their backs. "Hands where I can see'em." They did as they were told, for the time being. There had been a light to touch on the square, so Kris was in less of a panic than the situation would have warranted.

Slowly and with no sudden moves, the three turned around to see a frilled drake in an awkwardly fitted, red suit jacket, a white shirt and an equally blood-red tie, and a top hat to match it. Clothes that matched with what regular people wore here, but you could see through the jacket that he had an ammunition belt for something that used very long bullets swung over each shoulder. "Wait..." The lizard turned his head to the side and gave Kris a good look.

Then he pulled a little scrap of paper out of his jacket pocket and compared it to him. And upon doing it, a smile crept up his dry-looking lips. "Looks like today's my lucky day."

"If I may, suggest..." Jandsome, who had taken a few steps to the side with his hands still over his head, began to draw his attention. "...surely, we can come to some form of agreement, after all if you..." Mid-sentence, he did make a sudden move, but not enough of a major one to make the lizard pull the trigger. He closed and opened his hands without moving them, and confetti shot out of his costume and flew about one and a half metres into the air.

And while keeping the gun pointed at Kris, the reptile followed the confetti with his eyes to assure himself that it wasn't something else.

Visibly upset, he went on to stare at the jester. "Wat'cha playin'? You pull some thingamajig like that one more time, and I blow the kid away."

The jester, now grinning, took his hands down and shrugged. "Please, if you insist, be my guest." He wasn't joking. For a moment, a pressing feeling took hold of Kris, when the lizard pointed his weapon arm at him and moved his index finger backwards to pull the trigger. Only to then, to the surprise of everyone but the jester realize, that his pistol was actually a banana. With a victorious grin, the jester wagged the real revolver around in his hand.

"The good 'ole banana swap. A timeless classic." Now insufficiently armed to fight them, the brawler backed off, spread out his frills and hissed at them before he ran way. Relieved over the short-hand diffusion of this situation, both Kris and Berdly commended the jester. "I aim to please. Did you not expect me to have something up my sleeve? Now then, let us not waste much more time. We're already well on our way."

Now with a newfound hastiness, they rushed from street to street, and all the more wary of whether someone could be lurking around the next corner the same way as before. Once they were quite a bit further out, their apparent guide pointed at one of the many cars. This time, it was one that had a police light on its roof. "As you can see, we are getting closer."

And they could see why he pointed at a police car, since more and more of them appeared parked on the sides of the road. And when they shot the cars a glance, they could even spot monsters in similar attire to Berdly, usually eating something while locked away comfortably in their vehicles.

As the jester became increasingly jumpy with anticipation while they strolled down a comparably broad road with five police cars parked towards the crossing, they could already guess where they were going. Except the repeated clicking of readied firearms shot down those expectations right away. Just around the corner, putting them on the spot in the middle of a wide-open crossing, stood three more brawlers.

Kris and Berdly were a little faster at distinguishing them by now, seeing as there was a pattern here. One of them was the frilled dragon in red from before, but he was accompanied by two identically dressed men with lengthy snake heads. "End of the line!" one of the snakes hissed. And in the moments of motionless silence that followed, two of them tried to come up with a strategy to get through them. "You wanna keep going, you're gonna have to go through us."

Berdly tilted his head to the side. "You really want to attack us right here? With all the cops around?" He looked back to reassure himself that they were there, but they hadn't moved and most of them had monsters sitting in them, intently watching what was happening.

The reptiles were staggering in place a bit and couldn't suppress wide, tense smirks. "Wanna...elaborate on that?"

"Well obviously if you actually assault us, they're going to arrest you."

The brawlers had to support each other to not fall over after bursting out in shrill laughter as hard as they did upon hearing this. "Get a load of this guy! The cops doing anything!" They took a minute or two to calm down from the hysterical laughter. One of the snakes had collapsed and was trying to push himself back up with one hand while smashing his fist onto the ground over how funny he found this.

When the drake in red finally got a hold of himself, he sighed and wiped a tear off his eye. "Kid, you musta watched way too many crime shows. Stuff works a little different in the real world. Sorry to disappoint. Cops ain't gonna move a muscle. Boss made sure of that." It wasn't as though he was wrong. The three in front of them had long drawn their firearms and the policemen didn't look like they were about to make any efforts to leave their vehicles.

Finally slipping into the role his clothing implied, the bird grinned and drew both his guns. "Guess we're fighting this one out then."

"No." Berdly was rather surprised when Kris snapped at his opponents and at him. "No we aren't." He began walking straight their way, without drawing his weapon or showing any intention to fight them. He couldn't be dealing with this right now. He wasn't going to catch bullets for Berdly and carry his unbearable classmate's weight. He didn't have the nerve for it. The bouquet in the closet was one thing, but these were three people, armed and intending to kill them.

He was loaded from his time with Susie. All the darkners that left them some money for sparing them, and all the money he had frisked off of them after Ralsei put them to sleep. He had about three thousand of that currency.

"Whaddya mean, you don't?" The reptiles were as taken aback as his two 'allies'.

He opened his bag, and fetched for the little paper bills. "You guys do this for money, right?" They paused, and after a few questioning looks were exchanged, they nodded. Kris pulled together a bundle of those bills. "I'll give you three hundred dark dollars if you go away. You can either take it and leave, or we're going to fight this out and I take whatever you have on you instead."

They began staring at each other. For quite some time. And drops of sweat ran down their uneven skin. But in the end, while orders were orders, money was money, too. So they came around to pulling the bundle out of the human's hand and smiled. "You get away this time. But if we know, Boss' gonna know. There will be other guys comin' for ya." Apparently, it worked. They left without a fight. They could continue those last few roads along the outer edge of this level.

Over here, the 'moon' had switched locations, or rather, it was just a different moon-shaped lamp installed above this part of the canyon, because the one above the squares was too far away for the surrounding buildings not to cast a shadow on this area. They had to travel quite a bit along the curve until at last, the jester slowed down a bit. And when they were finally there, he stopped and spread his arms out.

"There we are. If you are in a foreign township and know now where to find what you seek, you ask the town guards. Or in our case, the police." They were standing in front of a wide, blocky building. It really was just a white 'block' built from smaller bricks, painted all white with two green stripes and one blue one. Some police cars were parked at its side, only that this time, they didn't have this vintage design all the other ones, had, but were modern models.

On one of two little flowerbeds next to the front door, one of the lights Kris could use to secure their progression was shining, unbeknownst anyone else who passed it. "And this..." The jester paused, intently watching as Kris walked up to the precinct to see how far he would go and didn't go on until Kris stopped to see whether he was following. "...is not our destination, since our friend and helper didn't prove as much of one as one would expect. Instead, this is our true destination."

He marched off, now with a significant head start, to the building immediately next to the precinct. A tower with a cube at its base, and right above the walled-off cube, glass walls covering the rest of the tower and the penthouse at its top. Several white pillars all around the building reaching from the ground to the penthouse, helped keep it stable in case it was particularly loaded up there.

The tower was tall enough to blend right into the ceiling of the level they were on and in the middle, it had a deep blue neon light in the shape of a lowercase 'i' attached.

With all three back together, they approached a set of tall, automated glass doors that slid wide open the moment they stepped onto the little walkway to the entrance. And inside, their steps echoed along the walls of the otherwise empty building. Pipes wound their way along the grey ceiling above. Green and purple lava lamps lined the walls to either side, and yet they weren't the source of light, completely normal light bulbs hanging off the ceiling between the pipes took care of that.

They followed the wide hallway further inside, until they reached a large hall, all upper walls of which were covered by screens that took up their entire surface, depicting maps and live footage from different streets outside. This included the one in front of them, with a double elevator right below it.

They stopped for a moment to examine their surroundings, but when they were just about to head towards the elevator, they were startled by a crackling noise that came from right above their heads. "Hello, my friends. Welcome to the information centre. What information can I assist you with?" It came from a floating man, a green parrot in what looked like a red hotel page's uniform, but with a matching red hat on his head, just like how most people in this city had.

"Allow me to introduce myself, I am the Infopage, but acquaintances refer to me as Manuel." It didn't appear like gravity affected him in any way. Or whether he needed to do anything to move. He seemed to just fly around at his leisure, with no strings or wings necessary to make it possible. Berdly, upon looking closely, could see some faint flickering in his appearance, from which he drew his own conclusions on how this otherwise normal-looking monster could fly around like that.

He spun an infinity symbol in the air while he continued to go on. "I have all the information you might need, at your disposal. Pamphlets, brochures, maps, trivia, restaurant recommendations, anything you need." Little paper pamphlets began raining down on them from above, but only Jandsome bothered to catch one to not be inconsiderate.

Instead of giving them a try, the bird smirked, stepped aside so he could face Manuel directly without straining his neck. "So do you also just answer questions or are tourist guides everything you got?"

"Of course." The infopage snipped his fingers, and the screens that covered the walls all switched simultaneously towards camera footage of different places outside. In some places, there were people walking the streets, so they weren't just static images.

"There are cameras in every corner on every level of our two canyons. And I am the only person with full access to the feed of every single one of them. If anything happens anywhere within the confines of our city, I am going to know about it."

This was the opportunity Kris was waiting for, so he followed Berdly up on questioning the page. "We're looking for a prince from the dark. Do you know where we can find one?"

Manuel put his hands together and leaned on them with his chin while looking down at the three of them. "Of course. I can immediately think of two. One is a connoisseur of many places, not a prince in the traditional sense, more like a 'prince charming' but he is renowned and well-liked with everyone here, many would consider him a 'prince' when asked. He came here today, but in more of a rush than otherwise. Then, there would be another one I haven't seen until today.

A short and timid one. Easy to intimidate with body language alone. Wears a green robe and a scarf in bright magenta. Floppy ears, fangs, black fur.." Ralsei! This was Ralsei! The live feeds even switched towards all showing repeats of a very limited set of video recordings showing Ralsei walk out of a broad set of doors that seems out of place for a run-down concrete block like the one the filigree frame was attached to.

To keep the infopage's attention before someone else had him switch subjects, he pointed right at him. "The second one! Where is he?"

Manuel placed his hands on his waist, glided a bit further back towards the hallway they came here through and nodded towards it as well. "Right next door. As they say, 'bad guys go to jail' and this one arrived and quickly found himself behind bars." Well this couldn't be right. How was Ralsei bad? He was the nicest person Kris could think of. No, this wasn't right. He swallowed down a creeping worry.

On one hand, he was hopeful he would meet him again, but on the other, why was he in prison? What could he have done that was so much worse than the things those brawlers were doing?

Without much more of a word, more or less mid-conversation, Kris turned right back to the hallway and began marching towards the exit.

"Hey!" His angry classmate screamed after him. "Where are you going? We're not done here?" Kris didn't listen and kept going, so Berdly saw no option but to run after him and grab him by his arm once he caught up. "Manners, Kris! You can't just buzz off like that! This is tremendously impolite! This guy was about to answer all our questions!" Kris didn't answer.

If Berdly wanted to ask Manuel more questions, he was welcome to, but Kris didn't feel like he wanted to spend any more time with this bird than he had to. He tried to move on, and wrestled his way out of the bird's grip. When he did, this bird shouted at him again. "Why are you in such a rush now? Huh?" He kept going. "Can't get back home to Mommy soon enough, huh?"

This was actually enough to get Kris to stop. He couldn't stand this bird going on about this over and over and over with everyone they met. He tried to distract himself from it. He tried to wait it out but it never ever stopped. He had long been picturing himself stabbing Berdly again just to keep himself from really doing it. His breathing was irregular. The continuous repetition was really getting to him. He took a second to calm down before he responded. "At least I have one you know."

Even now, when confused at what he said, that infuriating buzz never left that bird's voice. "Wait, what? What are you talking about?"

He caught himself almost spinning back and screaming at Berdly, at least for a moment, the impression of doing so flashed before his eyes. He wasn't as calm as he had hoped, so he stayed still, took a deep breath and then turned around slowly. He brushed his hair aside and faced Berdly head-on. "At least when I come home, I actually have a Mom that is actually there and not off to who-knows-where. She's at home when I come home, and I don't have to replace her with Noelle like you."

After that, he just turned back to the exit and stormed off, completely ignoring the bird's pleas for him to explain himself. "Say wha - hey! Hey! I'm talking to you!" All further screams that could still be heard from outside and half-way towards the police station were in vain. Kris' mind was made up.

He had no intention to wait with seeing if Ralsei was here any longer, just because this bird wanted to spend ages nigh interrogating this not quite so but still very annoying other bird. Even after the automatic doors closed behind his classmate, Berdly stayed in place. A full minute of awkward silence passed before he sighed and went back into the hall. He figured that Kris was too stubborn to get him back, at least for now.

Berdly was just left standing there, wondering what all this was about. Where was this stuff about 'replacing his mom with Noelle' coming from? Just because of some sleepovers? Kris had at least one point right. If Noelle were here with him instead of Kris, Berdly was sure by this point, they would both be safe at home and fast asleep again. With a tasty meal she cooked for supper rather than the ham sandwiches they had. He wondered how the day had been going for Noelle.

* * *

Noelle indulged Susie's sudden interest in playing cards for a few more parties of a different game from the first one, before she concluded that they probably did enough of that assignment. At least as much as Mrs. Alphys was going to expect from the other students. Besides, once at home, if she got at home, Noelle could still do some more of it on her own. They left school on the note of a promise though.

Tomorrow, she would bring her tarot cards, so she could show them all to Susie and spend time together, reading her fortune. That was one good thing she was looking forward to. She just hoped she would be allowed home when she actually went home. But she couldn't just go home on an evening before checking on her father.

Her legs were a bit shaky on the way there. Every time she went to the hospital, she felt anxious to go there, but she had to go. She wasn't sure why she felt this way. He said it was all fine. He only caught something. He was just there for a few tests. Just a few tests. She stopped at a crossing and looked up at the evening sun, already setting far enough for its relieving light to not quite reach her any more. It was a little later than she had planned to stay at school.

And this cold sensation sliding along her back would not let her go, it would envelop her even more when she set foot on nigh-white, soft blue floor. The nurse had long gotten used to her daily visits, so she didn't even look up from whatever she was reading on her desk while she greeted her. Just two more doors. After the first one, she stood in front of the last door to the ward her Dad was lying in and then opened it. Very, slowly. F

irst only by a crack, then gradually, she got herself to push it further open.

"Hey!", the long-yearned for voice of her father called from inside. "There's my lovable little pumpkin!" He immediately knew it was her. "What're ya waiting for. Come right in, let me look at you." She sighed and pushed it open far enough to step through. He wasn't alone. "How did things go with..." Noelle was startled at seeing her when she shouldn't have.

It was a grown woman, with grey fur and a pointy pink nose at the end of her face, surrounded by two strands of whiskers, stood at the sink and was washing an empty glass. She wore a dark grey suit, high quality, with a clean, white shirt and a light blue tie. She scratched the left one of her two conspicuous, round ears, and moved her hairless tail out of the way, but beyond that, she didn't care to react to Noelle entering, let alone to say hello.

"Don't worry'bout her. She doesn't bite." He was right. She was a friend of her mother's who worked at the town hall longer than her mother did. Sarah was her name. When her mother became the new mayor, she and Sarah grew very close. But that didn't go for her and Noelle.

Most of the time like she was right now, when she could avoid it without it looking too bizarre in front of a lot of people, she just ignored Noelle, as she usually did with Dad until the doctors found that thing that keeps him here. Ever since he was here, it was as though she was here every day at some point. Sarah picked up the glass and a bottle she must have brought with her, and left without saying goodbye.

"Humour her, she's had a very busy day." With his eyes half-shut, but still well-awake, her Dad beckoned her to come closer. "So how'd it go? You talk to her?" He was the only person she talked to about Susie. Which was why he already knew what was on her mind.

Noelle smiled. "Yes. We worked together and played cards for hours."

He chuckled and began stroking her forearm. "Did you say the thing?"

She couldn't help but chuckle with him and felt herself turn so red it must have shone through her fur. "N-no...I don't think I could that's...a bit out there."

"You just have to play it cool." He stared at her for a bit. "Okay maybe you're not the right kinda person to play it cool. Just wait till she least expects it and blurt it right out. See how she reacts. If it doesn't go your way, you can always say it was a joke."

This all was making her a bit light-headed and she felt a little too hot despite the air-conditioning keeping most of this place pretty cool. "I - I suppose so. I'll try...maybe." She raised her hand with her fingers twisted. "I can guarantee nothing."

He burst out in laughter, for quite a bit. Then he lost his breath and began to cough. For several seconds. He covered his mouth. He coughed long enough to have time cover his mouth. That hadn't been the case yesterday, but when he caught himself, he began rubbing her shoulder. "Don't look at me like that, I'm fine. In a week's time, I'll be up and ready, back in front of our gate. I promise."

She couldn't wait for that to happen.

She hoped it was going to happen.


	5. Needy Girls and Fluffy Boys

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 05

Needy Girls and Fluffy Boys

* * *

Kris was hopeful. The person on the footage that Manuel described, it had to be Ralsei. He paced away from the tower and straight down the walkway, back to the precinct. This time, before entering, he touched the light. If anything happened after him leaving Berdly and the jester behind, he could always go back to this point. Knowing this, he gave the simply designed building one more good look. The power of law and order shined within him.

Inside, right around the corner from the entrance, was a counter with a nervous-looking police officer in a blue uniform sitting in a chair behind it. He had the insecure face of a beaver and the reason he seemed nervous to Kris, was that he was rapidly tapping his index finger on his side of the counter. At least he did until he noticed Kris come in. The counter was walled off with glass, bulletproof glass presumably.

The only opening connecting both sides was an indentation in the middle that spanned a bit into both sides of the wall, with a glass metal slide covering it that could be slid open and shut from inside, and a tray about as wide as the indentation that currently lay on the official's side. In sudden, twitching motions, the policeman's eyes shot up to the precinct's new visitor. He opened the slide so Kris could clearly understand him. "E-excuse me. Can - can I help you?"

"Yes. I'm looking for a prince. I heard you had one here."

The officer scratched his fuzzy chin and pulled up a little black booklet to flip through the pages. "Sorry, I - well we got someone who says he is a prince. Not sure if that was an attempt at an excuse, but I have it noted down anyway. Dressed like a wizard, black, long ears." It was him! Kris was relieved enough to almost forget about Berdly. He grabbed hold of the counter and beamed with anticipation. "But he's a suspect in custody. Sorry"

Kris let go of the counter. Something was wrong here. "That can't be right. What did he do?"

The officer pulled up another document. "Says right here he violated a whole bunch of regulations. Housing, fire and safety, who knows what else."

"How? Are you sure?"

The beaver nodded, never fully closing his mouth. "It's pretty cut and dry. I can get a copy of the paperwork if you like." He slid further back into his office and spun around his chair to pull a file out of a drawer opposite from the counter and came back to place it down in front of himself.

"Says right here he - and I'm not making this up, 'summoned' a door out of nowhere on an outside wall of a public building. With no regard for whether its placement was a good idea, and he had no permits saying he could do this. Could that wall be a supporting wall? Is the building stable enough to afford another door there? And how are people inside supposed to know which exit to use in case of a fire if there are just more exits than before, all of a sudden? Those are all very pertinent questions he didn't pay attention to."

He couldn't just leave him here. "Is there anything I can do to get him out?"

"Well he did at first have a few felonies dangling over his head, but when we first got to him, he didn't resist arrest, he was actually the one that approached us first. He came with us nicely when asked, he didn't even sit on our work time or delay things by asking for a lawyer or threatening legal action. Or try giving us any trouble whatsoever. He's just sitting in there. Waiting for something."

He shrugged. "Maybe he's waiting for you. Any brawlers just draw their weapons and shoot or get whole departments shut down if we so much as look at them the wrong way. He was so nice, especially by comparison, we got the DA to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor. That makes his bail a small fraction of what it was originally. If you got five thousand dark bucks, he's a free man."

A brief moment of relief, that was struck down mere seconds later. Kris checked multiple times, but he couldn't deny it. He thought he was loaded, but he only had about half the amount necessary on him. "Would you take two thousand? Two thousand five-hundred?

"Sorry." The beaver shrugged again. "We did what we could as is."

Kris stared down for a while. "Is...is there anything I can do to lower it more? I don't have five thousand. Please, did he look that dangerous to you? There's got to be some way for this to work."

The officer leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin. "Hm...we can't reduce it just like that. Not more than what the DA set it to. We got new regulations on that, what with the new mayor and all." Then he twitched. "Speaking of which, maybe we don't have to. Ever since the new mayor took over, times got desperate." He pointed all around the grey plates of the human's armor.

Which must have been visibly out of place for all these people wearing mid-twentieth-century themed clothing. "And you look familiar somehow, I'm just not quite sure where from." Kris wasn't sure whether blurting out that he was the lightner those brawlers seemed to be looking for was a good idea. It was best to just shrug and nod. The beaver's first reaction to him acknowledging his status as a foreigner was to lean on his side of the counter and point at him.

"There's that 'some way' you asked for. So listen up. Commissioner Brigham's on a missing's person's case right now. If you ask him for a job, there might be the cash you need in it for you. He's right here actually, over in an interview room talking to two people. It's a major case. The guy we're looking for has lots of friends all around the city. Everyone here wants to see him safe. That and we could really use his help with a few things right now. Problem is - you can guess - new mayor -we can't do anything on our own. Our hands are tied. We can't collect evidence, we can't frisk anyone, we can't ask anyone to open their bags, we can't defend ourselves when attacked, we can't even talk to anyone unless they talk to us first - the only reason we even could arrest your friend in the first place, is because the very first thing he did after he appeared, was ask an officer if he knew of any lightners showing up here. We used to go to the infopage next door for information, but even asking him is illegal now if you'e a cop. It's - it's."

He wiped the sweat that had gathered off of his forehead. Whatever this situation was, it was really bothering him. "The thing we need most right now, are helping hands from outside. Without help, we're never going to make any progress."

Well that was an opportunity, Kris guessed. And it explained why all those policemen were just watching when the brawlers attacked. But this left open bits that bugged him. "Why can't you do anything anyway?"

There was a bit of an awkward pause. Kris felt like he wasn't supposed to ask this for some reason. "New mayor and all that." Again, the officer stared at him, and only after a while his eyes narrowed. "Sheesh, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Kris shook his head. "Have you been living under a - how far away are you from exactly?"

He had to think. This was still the same house as in the light world, so maybe there was something similar to the different floors. "Down under? Pretty far down under."

Him not knowing what this 'new mayor' thing was about seemed to really surprise the officer. He put his hands together, looked around and went on. "Guess it's a good thing the commissioner's busy. And I'm kind of waiting to hear how it went, so I don't have much to do either. Why don't you grab a chair and I tell you?" Beyond the hallway the counter was in, was a larger area presumably made for visitors.

More monsters in suit jackets with hats sat and stood in various places, all nervously sneaking glances at one door further in the back from time to time. The odd one here and there looking at Kris in a funny way, because of how he was dressed as far as he could guess. There were a few sittees, a water cooler with several officers gathered around it. Same with a coffee machine about a metre away.

And in the corners just next to the windows were a few cubicles with men in blue tapping their feet or twisting their thumbs in a manner similar to the one behind the counter. And further down another hallway past the door they were all weirdly fixated on, was a mouse, that frantically gnawed at a cheeseburger without actually eating it.

Kris tried to ignore the depressing atmosphere and just grabbed one of the chairs next to the table and brought it closer to the counter, even though upon sitting on it, he could barely look into the office on the other side, so he fetched another chair to stack on top of it before he sat down.

"Right then, so how much about this place do you know?" Kris went on to recount what little Jandsome had told about the citizens originally living spread out until the 'lightners' - Berdly probably - banished them into the canyon. "Okay, that's a start I guess. Thing was though that getting banished by itself wasn't all bad. But it is where our city growing stopped and our problems started. The brawlers were actually here before we were. Nasty bunch, all of them."

"Always out for blood, and everywhere they go, people start getting stabbed, shot or hooked on dust. We were lucky when we first got here, because we already had a fully operational police force. When they'd mug people, stab people to death, get caught selling dust, we just locked them up. Fast trials, no appeals. So mostly, everything was fine at first. And it stayed that way for a long, long time. Only that not too long ago, things changed. A lot. This 'knight' showed up."

"Guy completely covered in weird armor. He just asserted himself and threatened to kill everyone when he didn't get his way. He just kind of 'overthrew' our mayor of several years and instated a new one. A brawler. And it's the biggest and nastiest one I've seen in my life. He doesn't even have a forename, he's only called 'Don Gatore'. When that was over, the knight left, but the new mayor made a lot of changes."

"The moment he took office, the first thing he did was grant complete amnesty to all brawlers that were behind bars and had us set them free. Every single one. We had the commissioner talk to him about the exploding crime rate, but all that did was make him angry, so he just made bothering brawlers in any way illegal and started issuing all kinds of new laws on what we're not allowed to do. Police restriction after police restriction, and he hasn't stopped since."

"The only thing he does all day except issuing police restrictions is expropriating and homeowners, so now about a third or a fourth of the whole city is homeless and their homes remain empty." He sighed. "Well either way. What do you think? You ask for a job, if you find information that helps solve the case, you'll be swimming in so much cash, your friend could rob a bank and you could still bail him out." It was 'something' but he didn't feel like he could just leave Ralsei here.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. It'll be fine, it's not like your friend's running away or something. Besides, he's safer in here than anywhere out on the streets, what with the brawlers looking for him and all that."

That only made it even worse. "Why are they looking for him?"

The beaver shrugged. "I dunno. All I do know is the Don put out a hit on a few guys. All anyone's got for reference are descriptions and these crude drawings. And he kinda looks like one of them. Wait a sec." He slid back to open up and rummage through the same drawer, but a bit more deeply. "Your friend's lucky he went to us first. We only arrested him. If the brawlers had found him, he'd be swimming with the sharks right about now."

Once he found what he was looking for, he slid back and dropped a few pieces of paper on his side of the counter. The first one he spread out and pushed closer to the window, was a barely recognizable, coloured sketch of three characters. And the rough shapes and colour schemes were immediately recognizable to him. It was a drawing of Ralsei, Susie and himself. "Come to think of it..." The now intrigued officer picked it up and held it in place to compare the drawing to Kris.

"You kinda look like one of them,too. But that doesn't make any sense." The man grew increasingly uncertain all of a sudden. His motions turned a little more sudden. He tried to give it a good look a few more times to reassure himself that he wasn't imagining it, and got more agitated each time. This seemed to stir him up more than talking about Ralsei. He put down the picture and spread out the other sheets, which were printed on with lists.

"...bear with me here. I thought it wasn't relevant to anything we're allowed to investigate, so I didn't bother to sort it at the time. Help me here." He began reading a few points off one of those lists. "Would you personally say that 'pacifistic, low confidence, pushover, non-confrontational, uses magic' is an apt way to describe you?" Kris shook his head. "Didn't think so. Your friend said that's him. What about 'Simple-minded, impulsive, anger issues, highly violent, excessive appetite'?"

He declined again. "Okay, didn't seem that way to me either. What about - uh - outgoing, flirtatious, commanding, silent, shy, attacks on sight, resolves conflict peacefully...this one is just all over the place!" All the more to his confusion, did the human shoot him an affirming gesture. This was going to be the one.

The jumbled-up descriptions were exactly what Kris imagined it would sound like if someone tried to make sense of all the things he was compelled to do during his adventures with Susie.

"Goodness, that means..." He scoured along the sheet, reading off of it more that they seemed to have on him. He was even more shaken up when he found what he was looking for. Almost jumping in his seat, he pointed at a particular part of what must have been summarized points someone gathered watching him, Susie and Ralsei. "There it is! Lightner! You're a lightner!"

Considering what he had just heard about being a person that was wanted dead by the highest authority here, Kris was readying himself for incoming attacks and kept his hand ready to draw his sword. But that proved an unnecessary concern within a moment. "Come with me! He's definitely going to want to talk to you right now if this is true!"

The moment he had pointed at Kris and blurted out that he was from the light world, the surrounding officers in the hall were starting to turn his way and pay attention to him. While the now all the more sweaty beaver came stumbling out from a door a little in the back of his office. While he came to the front and led him to the hall, Kris could see all the other people slowly shift their tone. He could even hear them mumble things like: "A lightner?"

"Another one? This one is bigger."

"How are they all getting here?"

When he arrived at the door in question, the beaver was already peeking inside and talking to whoever was there. All their visitor could do for the time being is stand outside and listen. "And what makes you so sure he is one?", a loud, grumbled voice asked.

"I've got a match for their doodles."

The already loud voice just gained quite a bit in volume and turned all the more annoyed. "What? Again? How do they keep wandering in here? Why here of all the places?" He heard a sigh. "What does it matter. Where is he? Well, then open up that door! Let me have a look!" With an anxious haste, the beaver obliged his superior, opened the door all the way and gestured Kris to enter.

While he did so, the doodle in question was handed to a very upset looking brown bird with ruffled feathers black spots. A lit cigar hung off the side of his beak and he wore a black suit jacket made of about as robust-looking a fabric as you could use without making it look too informal. While Kris came closer, he held up the picture to make the same comparison as his subordinate.

"That's a match alright. At least as much as you can. Not like one of those brawler scumbags ever went to art school." Neither did Kris, but he was fairly confident he was able to do better than those barely coherent strikes.

"Well done." As though that was enough, the trembling beaver nodded and rushed outside, presumably back to his office in case more people came in here. "And as for you." Commissioner Brigham took the cigar out of his mouth. "Since everyone who wanders in here seems to know each other somehow, do you recognize those two?"

He nodded toward the other side of what was - counter to his expectation, not the kind of table you expected to see in a room for interrogations, but rather a conference table. On the other side sat two more people. Slightly hunched and drawn together, sat a human woman who must have been ridiculously tall if she wasn't almost curled together like that. Her smooth, blond hair was so long, it reached down to the floor, and her legs were impossibly long as well.

She wore a warm, long coat that covered everything, it was long enough to cover her entire body even if she had been standing. She was sobbing, her face was drenched in tears that she could barely wipe off fast enough to get a break, and those had long smeared all the makeup around her eyes down along half her cheeks. The other person that sat next to her, trying to cheer her up, was a little girl. A bird with bright orange feathers and dressed in an orange raincoat.

The colour had thrown him off for a second, so it took him a little to recognize by the shape of her beak and her overall face, that it was Berdly's little sister. "So?" The surprise must have startled him for so long, the commissioner was already getting impatient. Do you?"

"Y-yes..." Kris rushed right around the table to talk to the little girl from up close. "What are you doing here?"

Her response was completely nonchalant and bore no hint of her thinking it was surprising or worrysome for her to be here, she responded with as much of a smile she could muster with this human woman she was apparently familiar with, crying right next to her. "We're looking for Scott."

Right, the plastic doll she was missing, but that didn't explain her presence. "Yes, but how did you even get here?"

"We flew here, with a plane."

The unsettling grunts of the chief behind him startled him for a moment. "Janice right here's got friends in a lotta places. Got flown in here calling in a favour, and we owe her and her boyfriend lots of favours, too. But before you dig your nose into this too far, come right back here. Why are you here anyway?"

Kris tried his best to explain the entire situation he had discussed with his subordinate just before in a few sentences. Including the part of wanting a job in hopes of bailing out Ralsei. It only seemed to worsen the commissioner's mood even more.

He grunted and ground his cigar against the bottom of an ash tray near the edge of the table. "And again, the system's being a roadblock in all the wrong places while it doesn't get done what it's supposed to. Look, I get ya. About the job, congratulations, you're hired." He gave Kris a quick handshake and began making his way outside.

Well that went fast. "I've got an idea what to do about your friend, just wait here, I'll be right back. He could worry whether he could trust any of these people later, should they actually reveal that he can't.

For the time being, it was best to find out more about this missing person. He sat down at the table the woman didn't seem like she was in a condition to talk. "Wait, so before you flew here, how did you get where you started flying from?"

"From the airport of course."

"Yes, but what airport? Where exactly?"

"I dunno, just an airport. Debbie brought me here." The moment she said 'Debbie's name, the human woman cried all the more. Of course. She was here to look for the Scott doll she couldn't find. And then this woman was the corresponding Debbie doll, or rather what she looked like in the dark world.

"Stop callin' her Debbie, dammit!" The angry commissioner had come back from whatever errand he was off running. "Her name's Janice! Janice! And he's not called Scott, his name's Pilot. And you, get back up." He gestured Kris to come closer. He was now holding a little box filled with two stacks of bills.

"You said you only got enough to pay half the little black guy's bail. These are four thousand dark bucks. Three thousand so you can pay your friend's bail and get him out right now, and another thousand for expenses you might run into. Consider 'em a pre-paiment. Or a loan. You can work it off as you go." Kris' eyes widened. These policemen were willing to watch people get killed to abide those nonsense laws and here he was, just giving him a pile of money to free Ralsei.

He stared at the commissioner for a while. Then he finally put his thoughts into words. "I'm pretty sure there's some law against this."

The commissioner chuckled and began pulling a box of cigars out of a pocket on the inside of his jacket. "Like I care anymore. I played along with 'em for too long. Frankly, I lost trust in the system the moment that cocksucker of a mayor banned arresting brawlers. If there's already two lightners here, that's good enough for me to believe the lightners are on our side. And since you're officially on the case as a police advisor, we might as well get you up to speed."

He sat down at his table, in front of two closed folders and opened them up. "Person we're looking for is called Pilot. And he's a Pilot. A pilot called pilot. Almost like he was made to be one. Here's a pretty good picture." He pulled out one photo of Pilot standing next to Janice and saluting with a smile. They both seemed happy actually. He had well-kept brown hair, striking facial features and muscles that you could see through his uniform. And he was just as tall as the woman.

"Long story short, him and Janice here have been together for years, and everything was hunkey-dorey for as long as anyone can remember. Until one day, earlier today actually, he just up and left. Came to Canyon City, acted weird in front of everyone he talked to, went to a bar, bought a bunch of booze and then just vanished. Completely. And right after that, all hell broke loose."

"You mean the new mayor?"

"No, that came quite some time before. It's uh - it's over. That's what matters. If it ever happened again, you'd know what I'm talking about right away. That said, you wanna free your friend, right?" All those worries he had about him not being able to see Ralsei again, they were melting away along with the frown that kept his smile away. He nodded and was directed back outside. "Then wat'cha waiting for? Take the money, go ahead. None of us are running away."

The moment he said that, Kris grabbed the Money and, holding onto them tightly, rushed back to the counter at the entrance of the building.

"Huh? What?" The beaver had gone right back to absentmindedly tapping his finger on the table and was surprised to see Kris come back so soon. "Oh." He quickly began to get an idea what this was about though, when he saw Kris place down stacks of bills and open his bag to pick together a third stack. "Is this what I think it..." He didn't need to finish that sentence before Kris nodded.

Once the stacks were placed in the tray and slid over to the beaver's side, he began sifting through both stacks to assure himself that it was the right sum, and took his time doing it. Kris was calm. He could wait, as long as this meant Ralsei was going free. Soon, the officer placed the third stack on the side. "That's it, five thousand." He slid his chair back to fetch a few forms and began signing them and adding notes. "Okay, that'll be it. Follow me."

Now a lot less nervous than before, he got up and left his office to guide Kris through a different hallway deeper into the building, past more doors, behind some of which were conference rooms, and windows showing the interview rooms behind closed doors. The plain white walls of their holding cells at the heart of the building seemed almost designed to make the dirt and traces of dust on them visible. An inexplicable excitement took hold in his spine.

He couldn't believe this was happening, it felt like a dream come true, moreso than being in the dark world. And then, once they passed a few cells with scraped metal bars, obscured behind the cold metal of the only cell that wasn't damaged beyond recognition, he sat on a bench. Wrapped in the same green robe and the same dark-pink scarf, looking down on the floor. The sight would almost have broken his heart, if Kris didn't know that it would change very soon. "Hey, get up."

Surprised and soon with a warm glow in his eyes, the cervine bag of goodness looked up to see who was visiting. "Kris! You're here."

"Yeah, and he paid your bail. You're a free man." The beaver got his key out to unlock the cell door, swung it wide open and then stepped aside.

Relieved beyond everything, Kris almost ran around the cell wall, inside it, and before Ralsei could do much else, ran his arms under his to pull him into an embrace. "Kris..." It was hard to explain why he was so happy. Or so emotional in general all of a sudden. It felt like a lot of the baggage bubbling up now was always there, now he just had someone he could let it show with. He was just glad that he got this far and brushed his head against the darkner's fuzzy cheek.

When Ralsei first taught him how fighting worked in the dark world, the 'player' made him hug Ralsei. Again and again. Someone like Ralsei must have had some major significance for them, and finally meeting Ralsei again, after only a day had passed, he couldn't blame them for it. He had only met him twice, but something about his warm touch made him feel like he had known him almost his whole life.

Like he could tell him anything that concerned him and Ralsei would just listen and not somehow use it against him. He was close to tears, his mouth was trembling. He was out of breath even though there was no reason to be.

Between how little meaning there was to most things in the 'light world', the supposedly changed Susie turning on him as soon as there was something to make fun of, and Berdly's endless screeching here in the dark world, seeing Ralsei again was just the change he needed. The darkner hugged him back, but when Kris held him a little more tightly, he let go. "...Kris, you're hurting me."

"I'm sorry." He let go of him, but the wide, smile wouldn't leave his face, even if he tried to make it.

The beaver giggled and waved towards the hallways they had come from. "All right, you two lovebirds. I've got to get back to my post. Off you go." And so they did. Hearing and feeling Ralsei's steps right behind him, now he finally felt like everything was going to get better from here. He didn't really feel confident that they could make it through this dark realm before, he was just grasping at straws for the most part.

As the commissioner had said, the two guests were still there waiting for them with him when Kris and Ralsei were back. "Good, now that you're all together, I can't wait to send you all outta here."

The white light of Ralsei's eyes grew a little taller. "Why does it sound like you're trying to get rid of us?"

"Because I am. The sooner you get out of here, the safer it gets in here. Every minute one of you three from that doodle is in here is a minute where those scumbags could be kicking our door in to get to you. The worst thing that could happen is if that pink hairy one showed up as well. That said, here you go." He picked up a blue leaf binder that hadn't been on the table when Kris had left. It was filled with sheet protectors, most of them empty, but the ones in the front were not.

"Got everything I think you need in there, so you don't have to come back. My number, a few others' numbers, the number of every police station in this city, the number of Janice over here, the address of the bar Pilot visited before he vanished, the number of the same bar, I gathered a copy of everything we got in there."

While he was going on, Ralsei snuck around the table and kneeled down to be eye to eye with Berdly's sister. And who would you be, young lady?" Kris told him that that was who she was.

"Pluma." Janice had calmed down by now, even though her tears left their mark on her face. But at least, this left Pluma in a bit of a better mood.

"That's a nice name." He got up and returned to the commissioner. "The door this is all about, is it still there?"

"Oh god, you're not planning on making more of those, are you?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No need to worry. I just need the one. I suggest Pluma and the nice lady here come with us. The door will take us to a place that offers more safety than any of your stations can offer."

"We got word on that by the way. The building's fine. No new exit and it seems solid enough not to have to worry. But please, for the love of everything that is holy, don't make any more doors. It's a nightmare for anyone doing the paperwork."

Kris gave him a questioning look. "Don't worry, Kris. Some of the policemen visited me from time to time, they told me everything about what is happening outside. I knew that if I just wait for long enough, you would find me. But how did you find me so fast?" He told them all he knew about the tall, blue but otherwise human-looking, medieval jester who led them here.

It seemed to spark Mr. Brigham's interest. He pulled the cigar out of his mouth and pointed it Kris' way. "Did this guy tell you where exactly he had been last before he met you in the cliffs? Had a few guys spot him too, right after all the weird stuff stopped happening."

He declined. "Only that he's a travelling jester. Why?"

"Hey, Reg!" He called for an officer, who brought a block of paper and a pen with him. "I got some stuff for you to note down. I've got a feeling that's somewhat related to the weird stuff that had been happening. Might even relate to the Pilot case. And you guys, off you go. Nothing's keeping you. You're not losing contact with us."

When Janice got up and followed them with the little girl, Brigham stopped them. "Lady, no-one's forcing you to follow those guys."

That didn't seem to do much to stop her. With his hand pressed against her coat, she just wandered right past him. "I am aware." She was still sniffy from before. "But they feel like my best hope. Please don't take this the wrong way."

The commissioner smiled - for once. "No offense taken. If you need anything we can help with, you got our number."

While the four of them got ready to leave, Ralsei further encouraging Pluma and Janice to follow, every step of the way, the commissioner's face finally relaxed. He followed them just outside of the conference room and raised his voice to call for the attention of all the officers present. "Right now, listen up everyone. We're gonna change up how we operate just a bit. Blind eyes are on the table from now on. We got two lightners on our side." Everyone in the hall cheered to that.

Those that had cups or glasses in their hands raised them. "Maybe we even got a third one coming soon. Let's hope they can find Pilot!" Then he heard him speed up to catch up with them. "And lightners." Most of his anger and annoyance was gone from the smiling bird's face, and he had put out his cigar as well. "Something you might need. Haven't seen either of you armed, you might need it for self-defense."

Kris was surprised to see what he saw in the box the commissioner had been handed to present to them. He was giving them a firearm. A one-handed pistol with a modern, blocky shape to its barrel, along with a few boxes of ammunition. Kris was about to decline, when Ralsei stepped closer, gladly accepted it and stuffed both the weapon and the ammunition in two of the pockets in his robe.

"And about the loan. Here's one way you can pay it off even before you solve the case. Brawlers are flying blind. All the cameras all over the city are useless to them. We can't just march out on the streets and arrest them, that's start an open war and all the citizens would get caught in the crossfire. But what we can do is not stop you from doing so. As long as you got no witnesses, if you can take them out or bring them to any station to get them locked up, we're gonna do it and deduct a reward from that loan. Maybe even pay you part of it to keep you going. It's about time that we started playing dirty. Brawlers don't give a damn about the law, why should we?"

One more time, everyone in the room cheered at the four people leaving the building.

* * *

Noelle spent some more time with her Dad that day. And even now, there was uncertainty in every step of hers while she walked outside. It had already been growing dark when she came to the hospital, now, while little light remained, she could already see the stars. Time had run out more quickly than she had hoped. Noelle's time felt best spent around her father. There was a disturbing silence to how the leaves slowly shook back and forth in the wind.

They had lost their colour in the dark. Noelle knew they would regain it in the morning when the sun rose. But she could already feel that this wouldn't last for too long. She wasn't in a hurry, even though she knew she should have been. She knew where she was going, she was only setting herself up for disappointment. And yet, she had to. She already knew what was coming, but she couldn't keep spending the night at other people's homes. She already spent the last night at Catti's.

She was thankful enough to have a reliable friend like that that would let her. She knew what she was getting herself into, she didn't want to, she could feel that there was only a small chance that there was any point to it. She forced herself to move closer to the imposing pillars of the town hall. Each of them a multitude wider than her and poised to crush her without batting an eye, should the smallest part give in. Step by step, she carefully ascended the stairs and entered.

The walls looked a little grayer, every time she came here. The looks of the secretary and the other monsters all waiting for their own, sparsely spread appointments to come around, more weary and impatient every time they saw her enter.

"What is it you want?", the talking hand asked her, knowing full well she was here because it was her only way to go home.

She could feel her deep red fingernails stare at her. But she had to bring out those words. She had to. "I-i-i...I want to see Mo- the mayor. I would like to know if I - if I could talk to the mayor...please."

"I am afraid she is very busy. She has no time for insignificant things like family visits."

"Please...please just see if...I only need to talk to her for a second. Not even a minute...please, I can't go home otherwise."

"Sorry, this is how it works. 'No visits outside of appointments', the next one is scheduled to be in an hour and is already taken by the gentleman over there." She pointed to a badger in a suit who stared at the picture next to the counter.

"I'm sure if - if it's only in an hour...then what is she doing now?"

The hand remained motionless. "Being busy."

"No..." Mom was doing it again. Noelle was homeless and she didn't even know why. "...no. She can't be doing this. I beg you, just ask if she could..."

They both turned to the door to her mother's office, when it opened from inside. She was a lawyer, among other things, for her mother. Laughing and perfectly relaxed was coming through, with her bare tail swinging left and right in an elaborate motion. She was startled at seeing Noelle. The corners of her mouth dropped ever so slightly, and with her head still pointing up, she stared at her for a few seconds.

With an annoyed sigh, she unlocked the auto-locked office door with her key and opened it. For a brief moment, Noelle could catch a glance at her mother. "It's Noelle."

Her mother rolled her eyes and came outside. And even once she knew it was her own daughter asking to talk to her, and why, she looked every bit as indifferent as she always did in recent times. Noelle stared at those dead eyes, atop the grotesque and yet angry-looking face of the deer-like Monster she was. She put on what Noelle recognized to be a frown, in spite of her vertical mouth and the mandibles she had instead of jaws.

She too gave a contemptuous-sounding sigh from her, but after a moment's consideration, she begrudgingly stuck her hand in the pocket of her jeans. She wore jeans, when everyone else, even Sarah, wore a full suit. At last, she handed Noelle what she wanted for days. The key to their gate and the front door of her home.

She was so happy to be able to come home again, even if it was only for tonight. "Thank, you Mom..." The moment Noelle had the key in her hand, she tried to rush past the retreating hand to give her mother a hug, maybe even a kiss. Her mother just backed off as fast as she had to, to get away from her and went back to her desk. As soon as she did, Sarah stepped to the side to physically block Noelle's way before she turned around and pulled the door shut again.

And with the automatic lock of the door sliding in place, went Noelle's last chance at seeing her mother for the day. By the time she came home from work, Noelle would long be asleep, or would have to pretend to be to not get into trouble.

She pulled herself together, made sure the key was stored safely in her bag and left the building. As soon as that was back outside, she began to rush home. The autumn wind was so cold now. It seeped right through her clothes, no part of her was safe from it. It felt like the void above and around her was gradually swallowing her and leaving no life behind. Her face grew tense, and she could feel her eyes grow uneasy at once. She lodged her jaws together and walked past one more crossing.

Fully expecting a car to rush in and end it, but none came. Every single interaction with her mother felt like a dagger being lodged into her heart, and with all the daggers that accumulated, there wasn't much of it left. She knew this was a bad idea. She knew how it would feel. She didn't let herself stop until she was long past the gates and half-way through the little path that led to their big house's front door. The big house they got when her mother became the new mayor.

With so much room to put between one another. Her legs grew weaker, she had to stumble her way to the door. The hedges Dad and uncle Asgore had cut, that were spread across every bit not covered in trees or the pond at the side, were already growing out of shape. The grass was already growing taller.

She wished it was raining. Rain would wash so much her way. The patter would shroud the subtle sounds of sorrow she couldn't suppress and cover the rest of her face in cold water. She was going to be embarrassed if someone saw her like this and brought it up on the next day. Not to mention if she was in the rain like this, maybe she would get a cold. She didn't feel like getting up. If she had a cold, she had an excuse to just stay in bed, wait for the day to pass.

And only get up to get something to drink. At least until Dad got better, she would be safe that way. Even though she knew she wouldn't be so lucky. There would be no rain, she would have to venture outside and find ways to distract herself.

Dad had to get better. She needed to wait until Dad got better. She wouldn't feel safe again until he did. She had to hold on until he was up and back home. Until then, she had to distract herself. Find anything to do to think of something else. Tarot cards. She had to focus on remembering to bring her tarot deck. She had to hold onto Susie. Susie would get her through this. She had to. Even in the light of the chandeliers that hung from her home's ceiling, a dark shadow loomed over her and would never let her go.


	6. Two Handsome Devils

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 06

Two Handsome Devils

* * *

"So." As soon as they had made it all the way to the walkway and off the premises, Ralsei turned around to Kris. "Now wait. There's something I'd like to be sure of, before we move on. Could you open up your inventory and keep it open?" Not sure what he was on about, Kris pulled out the bag and opened it wide. While he did, Ralsei took a step or two forward and began circling around, looking up at the sky.

While he was still staring upwards, searching for something, the little girl walked up to him and pulled at the sleeve of his robe. "What are you doing?"

"I can't see the party menu anywhere. There should be a menu up there with little pictures of me and Kris and some stats on our health and how much damage we can deal."

"The party what?"

Ralsei wasn't paying much attention to the curious girl. "But it can't be gone unless...this isn't a game any more."

Kris came closer to him. "The player is gone."

Ralsei was surprised enough to find himself stumbling backwards a bit. His glowing eyes widened. "The player is gone...then it's true! The- Kris, do you even know what this means?"

"I can do what I want."

"It means this isn't a game any more. It isn't the same game anymore. Anything could happen from here on in. We could take things anywhere we want. I - I need some time to think of the possibilities. All the things I could do - that we could do!" He noticed himself that he was getting over excited, hopped up and down for a moment and closed his eyes to take a deep breath.

"Sorry. Got a little carried away there. First things first. This city is a dangerous place. If Pluma's brother is here, we should fetch him before we go anywhere."

Kris raised his open hand and stopped Ralsei right there. "Yes, let's not. He'll get along fine, I think." He had his fair share of Berdly for the day.

The prince's eyes narrowed. "Kris. What are you even saying?"

"I said let's not. I want to see how well he does on his own."

"There's dangerous people everywhere and you just want to leave him alone? That's not a way to treat a friend."

"Who said he is a friend?" Kris led the way in walking along the road, and was glad to notice Ralsei and the girls following him.

"I thought he was your classmate."

"That doesn't make him a friend."

"Kris." Ralsei had a very stern expression on his face. "Don't you care about him in the the least?"

He didn't even look back. "No. Let him run into brawlers and get shot."

Now, a stern little girl was even catching up and speaking up. "Hey, that's not very nice, mister!" Even if it was only so slight, that same annoying buzz was in Pluma's voice that was in her brother's.

And Ralsei could only smile at that. "She's right you know." Kris knew immediately was trying to do, giving him this charming smile. Kris could immediately feel the corners of his mouth get tense from fighting the smile when he saw him.

And he looked all the more disappointed, when he realized that it didn't work. "We're not fetching Berdly. He wouldn't want to come along anyway."

"No, why would you think that?" Kris said nothing. He just moved on, until they were far enough around a corner that they couldn't see the information tower any more. Then he asked Ralsei to lead the way to his door. From this point onward, when asked more questions or begged to talk to either of them, he simply refused.

As time went on, the questions became less about why not to meet back up with Berdly, and more about whether he was upset with Berdly or that jester and what was upsetting Kris so much. And even when Ralsei was starting to deduce bits and pieces of what made Kris refuse to talk, that didn't change the fact that he did. He just couldn't be bothered. Right now, he just wanted to see what was behind that door and relax for a bit.

Worst case scenario, they would have to fight their whole way to the city hall without Berdly and only drag him along in the very end to help seal the fountain. That was going to take ages, and ages with only him and Ralsei, but at least it was better than taking him along.

He did give up eventually. At least for a while, they were quiet. Until they were past the crossing of a bigger road and closer to the square. That was when Ralsei broke the silence. "Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know what's behind that door?" Ralsei was trying to get him to talk, and Kris knew that was just so he could try to turn things around to meeting up with Berdly. He could figure what was behind that door anyway. "You won't find out until you ask."

The campy tune of the ringtone on Janice's phone interrupted him. Someone was calling. Again. Everyone stopped and she fumbled the phone out. The last two times, whoever was on the other end just hung up the moment she took the call. This time, she took the call, and judging by how much she wrinkled up and raised one eyebrow, whatever she was hearing was very bizarre, and upon seeing the questioning looks from everyone around, she put the call on speaker.

"Stop it!" It was Berdly, and he sounded like he was physically strained. "It's just one phone ca - hello? He-" That was it. Hung up again.

"That's Berdo!", burst out of Pluma.

Janice kneeled down to hold her by the shoulders of her raincoat. "Is that your brother?"

"Yes!" At least they knew now that Berdly was alive. And he didn't sound like he was in actual danger, if Kris had to guess, it sounded more like someone was trying to wrestle the phone out of his hand.

The only adult of the group absentmindedly looked through something on his phone and eventually found what she was looking for. "He didn't suppress his number."

This drew Ralsei's attention. "Perfect, just call him then, and ask him if he's all right."

She obliged. And this time, she put it on speaker phone from the start. And he did pick up. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, my friend here's just..." There was more audible struggling going on mid-sentence. "What is wrong with y-" That was all there was, then the call was closed again. It seemed pretty clear cut to Kris. It must have been to anyone paying attention. How they got Janice's number was secondary in Kris' opinion. Berdly and Jandsome were fine, but they appeared to disagree on whether they should call her.

It didn't matter either way. Now Ralsei knew for certain that they were all right, at least for now, and would get off Kris' case about them. "It isn't far any more anyway. Let's hurry." Ralsei led them towards a detour that circled quite a bit around the wider area to avoid too much exposure and once they had made a wide circle around that entire area, he gestured for them to stop. "We had better run that last part. Stay close." They snuck around the corner of the last crossing they passed.

From here, Kris could see where they were heading. They were behind the square with the broken fountain, behind the large building at the end of it. On its back wall was a door. A tall and wide, solid-looking black double door with golden framing in the pattern of vines around it. In the middle of it glowed the symbol of the church. The Delta Rune. He recognized the door and knew where from. And it all but confirmed his original suspicion of where they were going.

They began to spurt, run even. Janice led Pluma by the hand, until they were going so fast, Pluma couldn't keep up on her own, so the human woman just picked her up. They were careful not to stumble upon the multiple steps, first from the street onto the beige bricks, then up the stairs that surrounded the building. A little more than half-way, when they were already hopping up the stairs, he heard something.

"Hey! Wait up!" And a quick glance to where it came from, down the street they had crossed to get here, showed Kris it was exactly as he had feared. It was a raptor with a spiky green hairstyle and spiked armbands just like the ones Susie had in the dark world. Ralsei swung his hand forward and the doors opened by themselves.

It wasn't far, they just made sure to cross that last bit. Kris almost stumbled from the shock when he heard a gunshot, but wound up speeding up all the more. He waited at the door to help pull Janice past the doors, and the moment they were past them, the heavy doors slammed shut with an impact you could feel and hear all around.

Silence. The doors were closed. A very welcome silence that Kris was afraid wasn't going to come.

Once they all calmed down, they had their chance at further verifying where they had gone. And Kris recognized it immediately. The black walls, the bricks of stone, the blue light of the candles and torches being the only source of light outside of the internally lit buildings save for the stars above in the distance behind the castle, and the black mass coursing into the sky from within said castle. They were back in Ralsei's kingdom, where Ralsei himself was the only inhabitant.

And if this was a door like the door they crossed to get to the card kingdom, the brawlers probably couldn't get through it either. And the prince confirmed this as well. "As long as we stay here, we're safe. Not long now, let me open up someplace comfortable for you." He marched right up to one of the many empty houses on the right side. With a quick shake of his hand, he summoned a key and unlocked the front door with it. Inside were the very basics of a place to stay.

There was a staircase up to a more narrow floor, an area to relax with an empty sittee and a comfy chair, an open kitchen, a fireplace that Ralsei lit while entering, an empty bookshelf, everything you expected for someone who moved in and needed basic accommodation, or at least the possibility of it, provided there was food and something to read. "Make yourselves comfortable, you two. They can't get to you here."

Once the two guests that hadn't yet been here entered, he began to make his way outside.

"Where are you going" When he was about to rush back outside, Janice grabbed the prince by the wrist.

He gave her a warm smile. "Fetching some reading material for you." Once she let go of him and sat down on the couch to watch over Pluma, the prince led Kris outside and closer to the main castle. "I hope you understand that I'm not bringing them here. Humans, monsters and dark princes aren't a good mix if you want to keep your fountain intact." He gestured Kris to take a step back, approached the door on his own and pulled one of them open.

"I can finally show you my castle. Come on, it isn't dangerous." Carefully, Kris peeked in past the door. The walls surrounding everything behind it were as black as outside, but in the distance, above, he could see the inner rooms of the castle glowing in light blue like the inside of all the houses. When he passed by Ralsei, the prince grabbed him by the elbow and led him further inside.

"Welcome to my very own castle. Now that this isn't a game any more, I don't have to wait for the final chapter to show you any of this, I can do it any time I want. If we get your friend here, we can do it tonight!" Inside, two rows of corridors branched off to their left and right side. Ralsei paced a little ahead and took a turn to the right. These corridors were separated from the massive courtyard that surrounded the dark fountain, only through railings, arcs and pillars.

You could breathe the fresh air of the courtyard even from there. When Kris followed Ralsei, he was standing at the foot of a staircase that they walked up. "I can do this any time by the way." Kris gave him a questioning look. "Open doors such as the ones we came through, to any dark realm you go to. Wherever you go, I can find a way to get to you. So even in the worst of times, if you think you are not safe anywhere, you can always come here."

After passing the staircase, they got to a floor that matched the outside form of the castle. Kris couldn't help but take a moment to take a look at this. Both walls, save for the windows, were covered in book shelves, filled to the brim with all kinds of literature. Some cleanly bound, some old and used with the corners of pages hanging out. And he only saw the wall being covered so much after walking through one of the rows of bookshelves that filled the entire room.

It wasn't walled off to the left and right through, led straight into the rest of the castle's southern interior. Seamlessly. When he came back to the prince, they climbed further up the stairs, to another floor, this one apparently dedicated to feasts. The part of the floor they arrived at had an insanely long dining table that took up half the width of the southern side. It was covered by a flawlessly smooth table cloth that ran along its entire length.

Chairs lined every possible bit of room for a seat, festoons hung off the ceiling, surrounding the chandeliers that filled the hall with bright blue light. Off in the distance, beyond the end of the table, Kris could spot the counter of what appeared to be a kitchen. He couldn't imagine what all the rooms in the back were for. They walked up to the end of the table that was close to the kitchen.

Once he stood at the right angle, he could see that behind the wall right behind it, there were more rooms dedicated just to the kitchen. And the open part of the kitchen he could see already included everything he could imagine you would need to feed a normal crowd. Ralsei brought him to one of the chairs and Kris understood that he was supposed to sit down. "Give me just a second."

Ralsei vanished into one of the many back rooms that lay beyond the wall and soon thereafter, returned bringing with him a spoon and a plate with a readily baked cake. He placed both on the table and stepped back. "Please, enjoy. I made plenty." After vanishing back to the same room he got this cake from, he came back with two more cakes and spoons. After that, he went down the stairs and left Kris alone here. The prince's visitor stared at the smiling face on his cake.

It had a dark surface, thinly applied icing formed the outline of the glowing parts of Ralsei's face with little arcs making the eyes to make it smile like Ralsei's dummy did, and thick green icing the part of his hat that hung down enough to make it into the circular frame of the cake's surface. Finally, some actual silence. The kind of silence he preferred to the one he already had before. He liked it when not only there was nothing to hear, but there was no-one to hear or see him either.

For once, in what felt like a long time, there was nothing immediate to do. Just some time with himself, to stare at Ralsei's face on the table and think.

Something that occurred to him upon thinking about Janice and Berdly's strange phone calls, was that he still had his own phone as well. He pulled it out of a little bag in his armor. It was unchanged, for the most part. When he first fell into the dark world, back with Susie, the very first thing he did, even if it was under the player's hand, was to call Mom.

He didn't have much of an idea how much time had passed since he and Berdly fell into the dark world, but if enough time did pass, Mom was bound to be worried sick. He could already picture her standing in front of Berdly's house with the car, wondering why Kris and Berdly didn't answer when she rang the bell or tried to call. Or yet worse, pacing up and down their home, wondering what might have happened to him. This was as good an opportunity as any to try calling her again.

But doing so only yielded the same strange, metallic sound it did the day before. He tried it again. Again with that noise. Again, again with the noise. Again, and again the noise. He tried once more, and for once, there was no noise. Instead, it led him to a prerecorded message.

It was the voice of a woman, an islander from overseas judging by the accent. "Hello. You have reached the mailbox of Doubleyou Dee Gee. Please stop calling your mother from the dark world." That last bit hit home well enough for him to stop trying.

Soon enough after that, Ralsei came back up the stairs. "Phew, I had to run twice to get them books. This should keep them entertained for a while. Now then, Kris! You didn't even touch your cake!" That wasn't true. He had stared and poked at it slightly with a spoon. The prince sat down next to him, not facing the table, but his guest. "What is wrong? Don't you like it? You won't know if you do until you try."

Kris looked up from the mostly untouched delicacy to find his prince smiling and heard him faintly chuckle. Only to stare back down at the cake again. "It is not the cake, is it?" Kris shook his head. "Makes sense. If it was that you don't like it, you would have at least tried it. It's whatever you're upset about with Berdly, is it not? Come on, just try it. I know you will feel better if you do." He began rubbing Kris' shoulder.

Even if a bit unwilling, the prince's guest scooped up some of the black mass and the right corner of the face's mouth and tried it. It was sweet. Very sweet. And with a note he could guess was the taste of some fruit he hadn't tried yet. Possibly even a fruit that didn't exist in the light world. He nodded and smiled to confirm that he liked it. "Good, very good. That means I can keep them all. It would have been a shame if I had to throw them away."

Ralsei laughed, even though his laughter sounded more like a sigh of relief than actual laughter.

How many of these did he...why not outright ask? "How many of these cakes did you make?"

"Four or five..." He stopped and stared past Kris towards the back door of his kitchen. "...dozens. I wasn't sure how any I would need."

"I don't think I can eat four dozen cakes."

Ralsei waved this concern right away. "No need to. I can store them for a long time. It hinged upon whether you like them."

Kris wasn't sure whether Ralsei was only lying to make him feel better about all those wasted cakes should they go bad. "I mean the dark world works differently. I could try."

His prince began gently ruffling his hair. "I'm hoping some day when we have time. I could take you here and I could stuff your face with cakes all day." With a spoon with another bite mere inches from his mouth, Kris paused and looked back at Ralsei. He had this strange smile on his face that he had at odd times and his cheeks were glowing in bright red.

It took the prince a moment longer than expected to become aware of his guest looking at him. When he did, he pulled his hand back and tried to make his smile look more collected, but it wound up looking more awkward than before. "But - but only if you wanted that of course." The red glow wasn't going away, Kris got the sense that Ralsei wanted it to, and the prince continued to try to laugh it off ever so slightly.

It was best if Kris changed the subject. "So what are we going to do about Pilot?"

A lot more relaxed, the prince turned around to sit towards the table. "Let's worry about people we actually know are in danger first. What is your problem with Berdly? What did he do?"

"He didn't really do anything."

"You said he's your classmate but also that he's not your friend. Even if he didn't really do anything, there must be something he did not-really do."

The cake was really good. Kris had already eaten quite a chunk off of it by this point. "He - uh - he said he'll be fine on his own. besides, we don't need him to seal the fountain. The city fountain I mean, not this one. We still have Pluma, right?"

Ralsei shuffled his chair a little closer. "Kris, that's an awful thing to say. We can't just abandon him."

"I have Pluma, I have you, the same prophecy applies, right? Human, monster and a prince from the dark."

"Legend, and yes, but...

"If we seal the fountain, Berdly will be back with me, right?"

"Yes, but you don't know what could happen to him in the meantime." The human remained silent and continued to stare at the steadily shrinking goodness in front of him. "Look, how about we make a compromise? We don't look for Berdly, not for now at least. How about if we just look for Pilot then, hm? Then we could get Janice and Pluma to stay here for good, at least for as long as they have to while we make our way to the fountain, however long that will take just the two of us."

Kris made sure to speed up and actually eat up the entire rest of it. Once he swallowed the last bit, he agreed. "Yes, we could do that."

"See? Much better. Maybe we'll even find Berdly and that other fellow somewhere along the way." Something gave Kris the feeling that this was Ralsei's intention behind the compromise from the start.

* * *

A little more annoyed than he should have been at Kris' little outburst, Berdly walked back into the main hall of the infopage's tower, grumbling along. "This guy's got some nerve. 'Replacing Mom with Noelle'. What was that about?"

Once he was back at the tall jester's side, the infopage lowered himself with both hands demonstratively placed on both sides of his waist. "So, are you not following your friend?"

"Classmate."

"Sorry, classmate."

"No."

"All right. And yet you are still here, so I assume you have more questions."

Berdly sighed. "Yes. Is there a way out of here for me without 'sealing the fountain'?"

With his arms folded up, Manuel lowered himself down onto the ground and nodded. "Of course. Whoever is in possession of a dark fountain - that is, can wield its power - can open portals between the light world and the dark world. The 'king' or 'queen' of every realm, even though they don't have to be one in name. There is only no point in doing so except if it is to help lightners along, because darkners have no form in the light world. At least not a sentient one."

"And the one for this realm would be..."

The infopage opened his hand to gesture towards his right, where a flat image appeared in the air next to him. "The mayor of Canyon City. Don Gatore. Also the head of the Brawlers. I've seen you had your run-ins with those."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. "Yes." He stepped a bit to the side to stand at a ninety-degree-angle from the picture, as it was hard to discern otherwise. It depicted a crocodile, or an alligator. Very large, if the doorframe half his size he was standing next to was any indication. Two gatling guns hung off of his arms, one on each arm, attached through metal rings wound around his arms, with a rod extending itself along each arm to lead to one of the weapons' triggers in each hand.

Ammunition boxes hung off the back sides of the weapons. He was so massive and so strong, he just carried the weapons and their ammunition crates along where he went, and had a suit tailored to his size with the sleeves cut right off. "Hm. As long as that fountain's around, this guy can just keep opening new portals any time, right?"

"That is correct."

He sighed. "All right, we're doing it Kris' way. I don't want to walk around in my own home worrying about my sister falling through any closets all the time. Kris said we need a prince from the dark to get out of here. He went right for that black one. So what about the other one?"

The infopage smiled, raised a finger and guided it along his path as he began dancing in a circle around the hall, floating in an upward spiral. All along where his finger pointed, more projected screens appeared and showed what was also displayed on the screens on the walls. Pictures of what Berdly almost immediately recognized to be a more lifelike version of Pluma's Debbie- and Scott dolls.

"This 'prince' isn't a prince in the ordinary sense, but anyone you ask would see him as such. Strong, well-built, handsome, a well-paying occupation with high prestige that has him and his girlfriend Janice around each other at all times. He is well-known in every realm he visits and loved by everyone around. Strong, good-looking, popular, well-earning, he is the prince charming any woman would wish for."

"And yet, in the highest of times between him and Janice, when their life together was soon to reach another stage, practically overnight, something changed. Without telling anyone why, he came right to this city, bought enough beverages to get himself drunk beyond salvation, went through a blind spot in my cameras and then poof." The infopage made an exploding gesture with his hands. "Gone. Never to be seen again. And not long later, complete chaos ensued.

Berdly stopped him right there before he could gloss over that. "What chaos?"

"All sorts of random things." Manuel resumed his spiral but moved downwards ever so slowly, the screens above and every projected one he passed switching over to different locations depicting occurrences that took looking at them more than once to understand what was happening in each one.

"Swarms of doves just appearing out of nowhere and dropping onto high-traffic roads, street lights growing bicycles and beginning to dislodge themselves and dance in place, the animals in the zoo started floating around until they formed a large wheel that sped through the streets, a giant moose is on the loose in the upper part of the inner city near the path to the city hall and in the circus at the bottom level, an omnipotent clown appeared and turned the circus into his personal Colosseum where his contenders fight to the death. That is only to name a few things. Luckily the citizens got most of it under control. The moose is still out there though, as is the clown to name two things that haven't changed."

The footage was replaced with the pictures of the 'prince' again. "Now, as I was saying, his name is Pilot. Since you are looking for him, here is some information I think you might find useful." In front of Berdly appeared a display with three things. One of them was an address, two of them phone numbers.

"The last location he went to, their phone number and the phone number of his girlfriend. A stewardess by the name of Janice. She is at the precinct next door. Your friend should run into her any minute now." Berdly fumbled through all the pockets in this unfamiliar set of clothing he was wearing. He realized he indeed had his mobile phone on him, as well as a little notebook and a pen. The notebook and the pen fit in with his costume just fine.

Now this was just completely out of place. Then again, so was how Kris was dressed, as well as Jandsome, who had been eerily silent up until this point. He knew there was no point in wondering about that considering everything he knew about how the dark world worked, but the anachronisms were driving him up the wall. Nonetheless, all he could do was play along and note everything down.

While he was doing so, the silent jester came closer. "So what now?"

"Well? We're solving this..." Berdly began to smile, grabbed his hat by two ends with the tips of his fingers on both hands, and tipped it slightly. "...like private detectives." He ignored the annoyed reaction this had earned him from the jester and faced the infopage again. "You, I need more information." The bird above floated down until he was back on the ground from the looks of it.

"I need the name and location of every person Sco - uh - 'Pilot' talked to, before he vanished."

"Of course." With one swing of the red bird's hand, another display appeared right in front of Berdly, with all the names and addresses. And Along with that, a few things dropped on the ground. Once he had noted down everything, he picked up what was on the ground. They were maps. One of every floor in this canyon, with street names.

And all the addresses were in one and the same floor within the same canyon, one level above the one they were on right now. "Locations, names, and a map to make sense of it all. And more." Another display popped up a little closer than the others. It depicted a large black square, consisting of smaller, randomly arranged black squares. "Scan it with your phone."

Berdly raised an eyebrow, but he did as he was suggested. Immediately, his phone opened up a new window and began downloading some application that was installed within seconds and opened itself. It was a map application, except it worked for this city. This vintage toy city in another world in his room had cell phones and interactive maps. "I believe this is everything you asked for. Are you in need for anything else?"

"No, no." Berdly had trouble packing everything together, and figured he could just leave the maps other than the one they needed here.

"Excellent. If you need anything else, you always find me here! Don't forget to visit the gift shop!" With his arms folded up, the infopage floated upwards and spun another circle. When he was readying himself to dash away, he stopped and floated down again. "One more thing. A little heads-up if you will."

"What?"

"The stewardess is here for no reason other than to search for her runaway beloved. If she loses faith that she can find him here, she will leave again. If you wish to involve her in your investigation, and I recommend that you do, you had better contact her soon, before that ship sails - or in her case, that plane takes off." After that, he spun through the air one more time and flew off to the hallway that led them here and then vanished.

All the holographic displays vanished, all the screens turned off. The jester smiled and walked up to the maps Berdly had dropped. He gestured for the bird to pay him attention, picked up one of the folded-together maps, and slid it under his sleeve. And then another, and then another. The patches of his costume, even along the sleeves, were separated by thin, black segments, and each time one of the maps was slid past the one closest to his hand, it just vanished.

"How are you doing this?" The jester just shrugged.

They walked back outside. To their right within the hallway, the wall had slid to the side to make way for a windowed door with several shelves and stands filled with a variety of little sweets or mementos. When Berdly was already about to leave, Jandsome stopped him. "Hold on for a minute." The jester pointed at what Berdly presumed to be the gift shop Manuel mentioned. "I'm going to need you to buy something for me. I don't fit through there."

The door was indeed to small for him, and even if it wasn't, there was no way Jandsome could navigate through the narrow spaces that the stands and shelves left to walk through. He handed him a stack of money. Bills similar to the ones Kris had used to bribe those brawlers before. "I want you to buy me infobadges. As many as you can."

The perplexed ovid raised an eyebrow. "Okay...if you say so." He indulged his new friend, took the money and entered the shop. The moment he opened the door, a bell attached to it announced his entry.

Behind the counter within, Manuel was standing - for once on the ground - with a wide smile. "Hello there. What can I get you?"

Berdly kept it straight to the point, placed the money on the counter and asked what he was asked for. "Infobadges. As many as this can buy." After inspecting the money for a brief moment, the infopage ducked under the counter and dumped a few badges onto the open surface. Ten badges. "Thank you..."

They were ordinary red badges to attach to clothing, with a little needle hanging off a spring and latched into a frame to keep it from stinging the person wearing it. On their front, they had a blue lowercase 'i' on them and a picture of the infopage winking.

"Have a nice day! Do come by if you need anything else!"

At least now Berdly knew the catch he was suspecting around every corner. The infopage supplied everyone with information and made money selling overpriced mementos. And back outside, when he handed the badges to the jester who made them disappear the moment Berdly looked away for a second, he couldn't help but ask. "Why are those badges so expensive?"

While they crossed the door, the jester raised a finger to urge Berdly to pay attention. "Because there is much more to them, than to be mere decoration. You would not believe how useful they can be."

They marched along the road in quick pace. For the most part, because Berdly didn't want to run into Kris, but also because he didn't know how much time they had. The stewardess was looking for her pilot, but how long would she stay until she ran out of patience? Once he was sure they were at a safe enough distance from the precinct to not run into Kris should he come back out, he stopped. "We should call her."

Jandsome stopped. "I beg your pardon?"

"We should call the stewardess and tell her we're on the case. You know, to buy us some time to talk to her later."

"That can wait." The jester gave him a dismissive wave of the hand and moved on.

"No it can't. You heard him. She won't stay here, not for long. And it's not like she can count on Kris to get the job done, right?"

Jandsome spun around in place to face him again, put his hands together behind his back and tilted his head. "Is this you making an earnest estimation? Or is this your grudge talking?" Berdly began to feel a growing impatience as well, but for the time being, he humoured him.

They went back to the open area in the centre. There were brawlers in the distance, and the bird was shocked to notice one of them spotting him, but also relieved to notice they didn't pay further attention to him. A welcome change, which they used to move straight into the tall structure that connected all floors of the canyon to ascend it by one floor.

And once they had walked quite a bit through this part of town, Berdly stopped to make a point. "That's it." He pulled out his phone and dialed the number he had saved under Janice's name. "I'm calling her." It only had to ring a few times for someone to pick up, but before he could say anything, Jandsome glided straight past him along the smooth, tiled pavement, reached onto the device and pressed the hang-up button. "Hey!"

The jester shrugged. "She will still be here for a while, no need to rush." Berdly's eyes narrowed while he stared at the sly grin and the red hearts on this grown man's face.

He sighed and moved on. And soon enough, they found a sad sight for a first person to talk to. The address didn't refer to a house he lived in, but an alleyway in which he scavenged the trash bins for food. When Berdly greeted the rugged terrier, he had no idea why he was being paid a visit or who they were. And when asked, he had no real information on why Pilot had come here or where he was planning on going.

After questioning another person, a woman in a dress who was sitting at a porch in front of a dark red apartment building, with the same results, the bird decided it was time to give it another try. "Now, let's not take a bigger risk than we have to." He browsed through the contacts on his phone until he found Janice's name and tapped it twice.

And again, the jester snuck around him and when Berdly expected him to come the other way, glided past him while making a pirouette and yet again pressed the hang-up button right when someone other end had picked up. This time around, the bird was infuriated. "Will you stop? Just touching other people's phones, who does that?"

And again, the jester shrugged, those hearts on his eyes taking on an awkward twist when he raised his eyebrows in the same motion. "Why are you in such a hurry? She is not running away."

"She is! That's the point!"

"I do not think she is this quick to leave. We should give her more time."

"For what?"

"Consider the following. The friendly gentleman in the information tower said your friend was about to run into her any minute. If he is, getting to know someone like him, possibly even his 'prince' must be something that takes getting used to. Would it not overwhelm her if two more strange fellows like ourselves jumped right in to introduce ourselves?"

They didn't know that she had even met Kris at this point. Berdly wasn't sure why they were supposed to bank on that all of a sudden. He just stared at this increasingly nervous man in front of him. He needed a moment to put his thought into words. And with narrowed eyes, he spelled it out right in front of Jandsome. "Seems to me more like you're just trying to stall for it to never happen. Why do I get the feeling you don't really want to talk to that stewardess at all? "

The jester was slightly startled and almost jumped within his constant dancing motions. The angles at which he bent with every step were more exaggerated the further he went on. "Nonsense. I love to talk to everyone! I am merely being a considerate person as I do it."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. "Mhm. Considerate. Let's call it that." He stayed quiet until they were half-way there to talk to the next person. Berdly almost went back to bringing up how how he didn't believe a word Jandsome said, but he figured it was better to be sneaky about this. In slow moves, he slid out his phone and began scrolling through his contacts to get to Janice's number again.

He made sure not to make any sudden moves but keep an eye on Jandsome at the same time. And so far so good, it took a lot longer with him only scrolling a bit, sneaking a quick glance, scrolling a bit more within his pocket, pulling it out for a quick glance, until he found her, but eventually, he did. So he pressed the dial button and slowed down to gain a little distance.

Oh no, that was exactly the mistake he shouldn't have made. Jandsome turned around and saw the bird with his phone at his ear. He defensively raised one hand, a feather or two falling off just from the nervous movements . "Hey!" That didn't stop the jester from at least making one step towards him. "Stop it!" Berdly backed off a little more. "It's just one phone ca -"

While he was still talking, he finally heard the voice of a woman answer upon picking up, but before he knew what was happening, the voice of the confused woman faded out. "Hello?" When he turned around to take another look at his phone, he realized that it wasn't his phone any more, but one of the smaller, thinner plastic slates that covered the pavement and other horizontal surfaces in this whole city. "Hey! Why are you so..."

The jester, now with the corners of his mouth pointing downwards for once, spun around to face him and threw the phone right back at Berdly. He caught it, even though he didn't need it, now that he had already hung up on Janice a third time. "I don't see why you don't just agree and give it some time. Do you not trust me?"

"To be perfectly honest, no I don't."

Still playing innocent, the jester began walking circles around the bird. "I saved your life multiple times, what would give you any reason not to?"

Berdly just stood in the middle of it, motionlessly. "There's a lot about you that's suspect." Before he could go on, he was startled by the loud and obnoxious jingles of his phone ringing. She was calling him back, so as fast as he could, he stepped away from Jandsome, picked up, and nervously answered the call. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?" Multiple people were trying to say hello. He recognized a few of the voices talking. At least two. One of them was asking if he was okay.

"I'm fine, my friend here's just..." But be for he could go on, he stopped hearing anything and soon realized that Jandsome had pulled the exact same slate-swap trick a second time. "What is wrong with you?"

The jester was now catching up with Berdly's real phone and as usual, once it was too late and he had hung up, he gave it back to the angry bird. Jandsome had a more stern expression on his face by now. "Is urging for a little patience all it takes to earn your distrust?"

Even this back and forth didn't stop them from walking along their path. "That's just the tip of the iceberg." Berdly mumbled with most of his beak closed.

Both froze, in the middle of the walkway and out in public at that. For a moment, Jandsome broke from his weird stances and stood normally, then theatrically tilted his entire body to the side, jumped and began walking backwards in front of Berdly while the bird moved forward. "Really now, do tell. If there is so much, please, be my guest. Do not let the quantities intimidate you. Choose any point to start with. I am all ears."

"All right." Berdly demonstratively put his phone away and stood as straight as he could. And still didn't nearly reach up to the tall man towering above him, so he decided it was better to take a step back. "For a start, there's the night classes." Now, the jester took a step back, too.

"Be honest with me, you can convince Kris of nonsense like that, but I'm not that gullible. There is no such thing as night classes for piloting passenger flights, is there?" The jester said nothing.

"We're on this wild goose chase looking for a tall human man who can pilot passenger flights, when I have one with me right here right now. And we're looking for a human. And the only human we've ever met or even just seen this entire time save for Kris and Janice, is you. Now granted, you have blue skin, your face is all different and don't look an awful lot like a pilot." He pointed at him.

"But I'm onto you. Just on the way here, I've seen weirder things than makeup and a costume." The jester was sweating, but he had nothing to say. "So what's your deal, huh?" Now it was Berdly that was walking around Jandsome. He pulled out a magnifying glass that came with his costume and pointed it at the jester.

"Are you a friend of his giving him cover? Is that why all that weird stuff happened when Pilot vanished? Are you a brother of his? A colleague? Do Scotts from different houses know each other or something? Is that how this works?" The jester apparently considered slipping into a silly stance again, but figured otherwise.

"Now you better tell me something good, or I'm going to just leave right now. I'll call up Janice, I'll go back to the info tower, I'll tell them everything I know and see what that stewardess thinks about everything I've seen of you. In fact." He pulled his phone back out and aimed it at him to start recording him.

The moment he had it raised, stopped looking at him and tried looking through the camera, the jester had already pulled it out of his hand. He now stood close enough to scare Berdly into moving back. The bird was scared as to what he would do next. With all the weird stuff he did, he wasn't sure whether he could outrun this guy if he turned out to be some lunatic. But he could see how tense he was all over. He could see him inhale, exhale, and then relax.

He relaxed, and offered the terrified teenager his phone back. With an empty expression, he finally spoke up. "There is no need for this. Follow me." He simply turned around and began walking across the street and then in a different direction from where they were going.

He did, but he was still confused. "What? Where are we going?"

"There's something I really need right now." He left it at that. And while he led the way, Berdly noticed that something had changed drastically. All of the jester's quirky mannerisms were gone completely. The squeak in his voice had vanished, it was just the voice of a grown man who made conscious efforts to keep himself calm and collected. And he stopped sliding along the pavement, making little pirouettes or otherwise dancing along his path or walking in silly ways.

All Berdly saw in front of him now, was just a grown man in a silly costume with silly makeup on.

The silence was also cooling down the air between them. He figured he at least had better not try to call this woman any more. Jandsome would keep ripping his phone out of his hand and hang up whenever he tried to get a word in. But now that he knew that this Janice was willing to contact him back, he had to make use of this as long as it lasted. One of those several voices that tried to talk to him when she called back, sounded like Kris.

Another reminded him of Pluma, but that wasn't possible, he must have gotten the voices confused. He sent her a text message and waited. He tried wording the first message in a formal tone, describing Kris and asking if he was there. She replied in a similarly formal tone that she had indeed joined him to look for someone together, Pilot as Berdly figured. But also that he was not with her at the moment. Then, she sent him a message that sent a chill down his spine.

"Pluma says hello by the way." She was here? With Janice? In a city full of homicidal criminals?

He immediately sent a message back asking where they were. He received a vague answer, saying the boy in the green robe had taken them to some safe house the brawlers couldn't get to. And that he and Kris and seemed familiar witht hat place. Well at least she was hunkering down somewhere and not out in the streets. Hopefully long enough for him to find her and take her someplace safer. The boy in the green robe must have been the 'prince' Kris had gone to look for.

If they were out and about moving to safehouses, then that meant Kris somehow got him out of jail.

Jandsome led Berdly to a destination they had already planned on visiting, but originally intended to do so after questioning a few more of the people on Berdly's list. It was a bar called 'Wright's'. Its name glowed in bright white neon above the entrance and through a window that spanned an entire wall, you could see the dimly lit interior.

Berdly could see a few monsters sitting on the benches, drinking, talking, some having a good time together, others keeping to themselves. When Jandsome opened the noisy door, the stench of burnt tobacco immediately filled Berdly' nostrils. Behind the counter stood an obese triceratops in a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up and a black leather pauldron with steel spikes hanging off his shoulder. He leaned onto the counter and greeted the two with a grin.

"Hey there you two. What can I get ya?"

He was very obviously a brawler, from the appearance Berdly recognized down to his sizee, so he couldn't keep himself from smirking and commenting on that. "A brawler that isn't breaking the law? That's a first!"

And the barista was neither impressed nor overly offended, in fact, it made him laugh. "I'd do bootlegging if I could, but booze ain't illegal to sell."

With an unprecedented volume, the jester cleared his throat to draw the barista's attention and spoke with his normal voice. "I would like one bottle of your strongest whisky. And something not so strong for the little guy."

The bird hooked in. "I'm not even sure if I can drink at all here, what's the drinking age?"

"Five. New mayor's legislation, all drugs are now legal."

"Okay."

The dinosaur turned around and fetched two bottles. One was the whisky Jandsome asked for, one an extra mild wine, even with a sticker attached to denote it as such. "There ya go." Without further ado, he counted the money the older one of the two visitors put down and kept part of it while pushing the rest back to his customer. "No need, but uh, wait up." They were already about to leave, but stopped to listen to the barkeeper. "You sound familiar, you been here before?"

Jandsome just laughed. "I'm sorry, you must be confusing me. Have a nice evening!"

Once done, he led Berdly into more and more wound alleyways, further away from any curious eyes, until he stopped at a crossing between alleyways in the middle of four apartment complexes. Jandsome stretched out his finger and motioned a circle onto the ground in front of himself. "Allez 'hop!"

Then he took some steps back, ran towards the area he circled, jumped at it, and upon hitting the ground, was launched all the way up to top of one of the buildings. Once he had his bottles placed down, he waved at Berdly. "It's safe, just try it!" Try what? Berdly stopped and was confused. How did he jump up like that? "Imagine the floor down there like a trampoline, just jump!"

Jump? But there was nothing there? He walked a little closer to that area the jester had jumped up from to inspect it. Then, from one step to the next, his entire body shook and he screamed in fear, because he was being launched up into the sky! The cold wind rushing against his clothing showed him how fast he was moving up and it was only going to get worse from here. This was it, Berdly was dead! He was going to get crushed.

He fell into a death trap he...he was fine. With little to no impact, he landed on the rough surface of the flat rooftop the jester stood on. Still hyperventilating from the shock, he stayed on the floor for a while. Jandsome laughed and came closer. "You should have jumped. That makes it much easier to not lose orientation."

"You never told me you could...never do that again!"

"I'm sorry, I thought it was faster than the stairs. Come on. Let's sit down." With one bottle in each hand, the jester made his way to the edge of the building. A one-metre tall wall lined the entire outside of the roof, for safety so people didn't fall off. Jandsome leaned against that wall, and once Berdly had gotten up and caught up to him, so did he.

From here, you could see the lights of the 'moons' in the distance against the dark of the comparably flat skyline, with street lights quite a bit below bringing an abrupt end to the calming darkness if you followed it too far down. The jester put down the wine bottle and took a second sip from his own.

The bird sat down next to the jester. "So?"

Jandsome looked back at him. "What?"

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

From how the jester was staring at him, he could only guess that he really, really, really didn't want to have this conversation. He did eventually break the silence. "I will tell you exactly what you want to know. but you have to promise me one thing. No. Two things."

"Go on..."

"One, I will show you something and you will not panic. You won't scream, and you won't run away."

That already raised eyebrow of Berdly's was reaching heights he didn't think were possible. "Okay?

"Two, you won't talk to others about what I show you. I will tell you everything you want to know, but it stays between the two of us."

"Hm..." The bird's eyes narrowed and he kept staring at the now visibly nervous man. He didn't trust this, but he wanted these answers. "Deal." He reached out and shook the jester's hand.

"All right. Are you ready?" He was asking Berdly, but it sounded more like he was asking himself. The jester swallowed down his fears. "There goes." He ducked his head, so his face wasn't visible any more under the broader top of his cap, and grabbed two of the loosely hanging parts of his fool's cap and pulled it right off. When he looked back up, a lot had changed.

His skin wasn't blue, it had the normal tone of a western human. The hearts painted over his eyes were gone. And his facial features were all different. They had lost a little of their obscurity and fit a little better together.

"What? What?" It took Berdly a few seconds to recognize it, but those were the features of Pluma's Scott doll, albeit with a lot more detail because he was real. At least here. For a second he was at a loss for words. " That...you...I knew it!" With a force he had lost control of, he punched the still ridiculously dressed Pilot's arm.

"I knew it! Ever since you said you can fly that plane I smelled something fishy about you!" He grabbed the pilot turned jester by the collar and began to shout at him. "My sister was looking for all over for you! For hours! I was looking all over for you! For god's sake, I made Kris look all over for you! What is this? What has gotten into you? WHERE WERE YOU?"

Pilot didn't even fight back. "Ple-please. First promise!"

"First promise was about panicking! I'm not panicking! I'm just really mad at you!"

"I said no screaming."

Still holding Jandsome, no, Pilot by the collar, he sighed and then let go. "Fair enough. Explain yourself. How did you even do that?"

They both took a moment to relax again. "It's the cap. It changes my appearance. I can even change my voice if I want to." He very briefly put it back on and began speaking with that strange squeak he used to put on again, even if only for one sentence. "Allow me to introduce myself! I am Jandsome! Travelling jester!"

"Okay...but why? Why all this? Why run away? Was it Pluma? Did 'the lightners' 'banish' you into my closet?"

"Your closet?"

He had to think. When Kris first said this was his room, what did he say about the closet? "Uh...the cliffs. I mean the cliffs."

"No. That was all me."

Pilot started chugging away at that bottle, so much so that Berdly got closer and pulled it back. "Stop, you've barely started here. So why did you do all of this?"

Pilot puled his legs back with their knees up and wound his arms around them. He took a deep breath. "Reasons."

"What reasons?"

"Reasons."

"You promised me answers."

Pilot took another deep breath. "This isn't easy you know." The bird just stared at him. They both knew he wouldn't let go of this. Begrudgingly, and very slowly, the human-looking darkner began to fumble in one of the pockets of his costume. He never sped up on this. He was really taking this time. When he was done, he put down his legs again and held up a tiny box.

Its outside was woven over in smooth silk with various shades of pink and red putting together a sown pattern of roses. "The reason I'm here, the reason I look like this." He opened it as slowly as he had taken it out. "Is because I am a coward." Embedded in a socket covered in cloth, on the inside, lay a golden ring, its upper side covered in tiny diamonds and one visibly bigger diamond set into its top.

Berdly sat there for a moment not knowing what to say. He was taken by surprise and blinked a few times, thinking about what he was seeing and what it meant. It was a wedding ring. "Janice. You were going to propose to her."

Pilot closed his eyes and nodded. It was silent enough up here that Berdly could hear the uneasy breaths of his friend. "I was - I was afraid. I was afraid what she would say. I didn't know if I could take this going the wrong way, I was afraid of taking that chance. So I chose to avoid it altogether." He turned the box around and began to stare at the ring.

"And now she's here." He was trembling. He was struggling to suppress his frown and grabbed his headgear. "This cap suits me. I really am a fool. She's putting herself in danger to chase a fool. I don't deserve her."

"So that's why you keep stopping my phone calls."

"If she loses hope in finding me here, she might leave. But if there are lightners helping her, she's only going to stay here for longer."

They both wound up silently staring at the floor for a while. Until Berdly came up with more questions. "So why all this 'jester' business? Why not just go somewhere else, maybe take a boat or something and sail off to where the angel won't see. Hell, that island was the perfect place. While we're at that jester stuff, did you learn all these tricks like the banana thing in that short a time?"

Pilot kept staring down. "I didn't. It's all the cap. As long as I can distract people in any possible way, it can do basically anything."

The student grinned. "That's one powerful cap. Do they sell those in the gift shop, too?"

Pilot shook his head. "No. It was given to me by a stranger who cheered me up when I came here."

* * *

I was much more shaken up than I am now. I'm not sure if I can remember any given moment since I came here when I wasn't either sobbing, fighting against the tears with all I had, or outright crying my eyes out. I couldn't bear the fear, and I couldn't bear the shame of myself running away, and yet I kept making it worse, because it was more comfortable than facing her again. I avoided contact with as many as I could, I only greeted a few people back.

I didn't know what to do, or where to go. So I just did what you could expect me to do. This. Drink away my sorrows. Or at least try to. I went to the same place we just visited, and then I climbed the stairs to get to this very roof. I was planning on staying here for a long time. I had food and water ready. I was expecting to just stay in this corner, where the infopage can't see me. But something unexpected happened. I met someone. A little figure jumped along all the rooftops.

I must have been such a pathetic sight to behold. A grown man, reclined in a corner, crying while drinking as if there is no tomorrow. And yet, for some reason, this roof wasn't an exception to the insanely high jumps this little fellow was capable of. In fact, upon seeing me, he stopped, in the middle of the air as if he could fly, folded his arms together and slowly floated down here.

"BOO HOO HOO. WHAT MUST MY EYES BESET THEMSELVES UPON? WHY THE LONG FACE?" He had a ragged voice that you could hear echoing all around whenever he spoke, and it was so loud, for the first few seconds, I felt like my head was going to explode. "THIS PLACE IS NOT NEARLY AS FUN AS I HEARD, BUT YOU SEEM THE FURTHEST FROM ANY AMUSEMENT WORTH MENTIONING!"

I could barely make out what he looked like. My sight was a little blurry, but it got better when I put the bottle away and gave him a closer look. It was a very small person. Smaller than even you or all the citizens here. He was wearing a jester's outfit, just like mine, down to the colours, and his face had the same royal blue colour to it that I have when I put on this cap. Although I must admit, his collar was a little more extravagant than mine.

His teeth were sharp, some hung out and they had the same bright yellow collar as my and his collar do. His eyes were painted over with black stars and a barely visible, yellow glow came out of them. His tail, once swung with its tail upwards, formed a visible 'J'.

And a fool's cap, he was wearing a fool's cap in the middle of a modern city. I asked him to leave me alone, but he just came hopping closer. "IS THAT HOW YOU GREET A NEW VISITOR? I MUST SAY. TOUGH CROWD. AND THIS VIEW!" He jumped onto the ledge I'm leaning against. "COULD DO WITH MORE COLOURS, BUT AT LEAST THERE IS A PLENTITUDE TO SEE FOR SUCH A SMALL PLACE. NOW YOU."

He jumped back to the ground. "WHAT DRIVES ONE SO FAR FROM HOME, ALL ALONE WHERE NO EYES CAN SEE."

I was still crying, even right in front of him. I didn't care at this point. I was a stuttering mess and tried to tell him that I couldn't deal with what I was facing.

"NOW ONE THING AFTER THE OTHER. TELL ME WHERE..." I screamed at him to leave me alone, I begged him. "YOU ARE JUST BECOMING ALL THE MORE INTERESTING. NOW." He sped right towards me, ripped my bottle out of my hand and threw it away. It shattered and all its remaining contents went to waste. "YOUR SORROWS WON'T GO AWAY IF YOU POISON YOUR BODY AND YOUR MIND. LET US DROWN THEM IN ENJOYMENT INSTEAD!"

He bounced from one side of mine to the other, and I followed him with my eyes. When I stopped doing so, I noticed that right in the corner of my eye an entire full-sized carousel in deep blue was built up and ready right here on this roof. In one jump, this tiny fellow got onto one of the horses and it began to move. They all began to move. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? QUICK QUICK UP YOU GO!"

He was successful in cheering me up in so far that he distracted me, so I got up and followed him. I did as I was told. I got up on the carousel and began riding a creature with a strange head. I knew it was childish, but then again, what did it matter. This wasn't a day to be proud of to begin with. "VERY GOOD. NOW HOW ABOUT THIS?"

Now that I was on the carousel, he jumped right off of it and began jumping up and down. Pieces of the roof itself began to stand up all around him and take on forms with arms and legs, and dance in circles around him. And all manner of playing card symbols appeared out of nowhere to join them in this dance. And once circle upon circle was wound around each other with him at the centre, he jumped right back onto the carousel.

I have to admit, he did so little and yet it worked so well, I had already calmed down by this point. "WHAT? WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN AND YOUR SPIRITS ARE ALREADY LIFTED! I WILL HAVE YOU SNEERING IN YOUR SLEEVES IN NO TIME AT THIS RATE. NOW COME ON, LET US BE OFF." I was still hesitant. I tried to tell him I wasn't sure if I was in any condition to accompany him in whatever endeavour he was out for.

"RUBBISH IF I EVER HEARD ANY. ONE IS ALWAYS IN A CONDITION TO BRING CHAOS AND MISCHIEF, ESPECIALLY TO A PLACE WITH SUCH A HUGE AUDIENCE!" I told him I couldn't be seen like this. But all he did was swing his arm around and as if covered by some blanket, he vanished. Mere moments later so did I in the same way. "AND NOW, YOU WON'T BE SEEN AT ALL."

And soon, we were on our way to the street. I was as terrified as you were when I stepped on a 'bouncy' surface for the first time and was launched in one move down to the walkway."PERHAPS SEEING ONE ANOTHER MAY BE OF HELP." When I got up, I saw my arms again and in front of me, he stood with his gloved hand raised.

There were a few passerbys, they didn't react to our sudden appearance in the slightest. Apparently, we were only visible to each other. The small man jumped all around the street, and tapped each street light once with a hand on each leap. Each one he did, began to quake and stir left and right. Through their surface, first the wheels, then the entire rest of four entire bicycles began to come out, two further up, two further below like arms and legs.

And leveraging themselves on those bicycles, they just pulled themselves out of the ground and began making random movements without straying too far from where they had been. The people that were walking close enough to see the spectacle were first startled, then shocked, and the little devil just curled together, bursting into hysterical laughter.

And that was only the very beginning. He led me all around the city. We caused mayhem wherever we went. All those things the infopage described happening after I vanished, that was us. We saw one person get startled at a passing deer-like citizen, so we thought maybe confronting them with a giant moose wouldn't be out of place. We saw a road with high traffic and decided to summon swaths of birds out of nowhere at odd times.

He created a gravity field that pulled all the animals in the zoo together and had them roll through the streets. We rearranged the layout of an entire block just to confuse everyone who had any business going there. We visited the coast and found a fisherboat and made the fish and the fishers swap places. The things he was capable of, it was ridiculous. Of course, some jokes were outright mean, but still, I couldn't help but laugh at them.

If I were to claim that I tried to hold him back and moralized about not treating other people like that, I would lie. I enjoyed our time together. I laughed at a lot of his pranks. But, as I suspected, it wasn't something that lasted forever.

After a whole slew of bringing chaos to the city, we returned to this roof to look upon some of it. "NOW THEN. IT SEEMS OUR TASK IS FINISHED AND THAT FROWN OF YOURS HAS TURNED UP. NOW TELL ME, I WAS TOLD THERE WAS FUN TO BE HAD HERE. TELL ME, WHERE MIGHT I FIND SOME TRUE ENJOYMENT WITH A CHALLENGE."

I wasn't really familiar with the kind of scene that would include a jester, so I figured he was a clown of sorts and told him about the circus at the bottom of the inner city. "THEN I WILL JOIN THIS CIRCUS. IF THEY HAVEN'T REALIZED IT, I WILL BRING IT TO IT'S FULL POTENTIAL." I asked him if he really just could take over the circus so easily, so he just came closer to me and went on. "I CAN DO ANYTHING AND NOW..."

Then he slowly pulled off his fool's cap and revealed a wide, rounded haircut of bright-red or orange curled hair on his head. "...NOW, SO CAN YOU." He gave me his cap. The moment I held it in my hands with no idea what to say or what this meant, he bounced away, shouting: "MISCHIEF, MISCHIEF, CHAOS, CHAOS!" and burst out in laughter, seconds before he just disappeared. I can only figure that the clown in the circus is him, and he really did follow up on my suggestion.

* * *

"This entire costume just sort of appeared on me when I put on the cap for the first time. This entire spiel, the costume, the cap, the jokes, it may not have solved my problems, but it helps me cope. So please, don't take this away from me."

Once he was done telling his story, they both stared at the ground in silence. But even when they didn't want it to, the world kept going. The wind kept dragging on Berdly's feathers and slightly pulling on the loose silk patches on Pilot's costume. They both spent some time thinking about what to say, or where to go from here. Then again, while they were at telling each other secrets, he might as well return Pilot's gesture. "I texted her."

"What?"

"I exchanged messages with Janice. Kris and his prince friend are already with her. Just like my sister. You think she's going to stay if there are 'lightners' helping her? There already are. She isn't going anywhere now." While the bird was getting up, the pilot just looked back down. "So what are we going to do about all this?" Pilot still wouldn't move. "She's not leaving now."

He walked up to him to try to give him a little push by he shoulder. "Come on. She's not going away until she finds you, and neither is my sister. They're both dead set on finding you. The least we can do is keep an eye on them ourselves."

His friend retreated back behind his knees. "I can't face Janice. Not like this."

"Then don't. Use this cap! Disguise yourself, make your voice different, doesn't matter, but we can't keep them out of harm's way if we're not there to do it. Besides, there's more solutions than one. Come on, get up!" He tried pulling him up by the hand, but it was no use. He was almost as sad a sight as those homeless monsters, but still bigger and stronger. "You know what, fine. Wallow in your own misery, see if I care! I have to find my sister!"

"Wait..." Storming off halfway to the outside staircase was what it took for Pilot to get back up and follow him. Now, with his cap back on his head, but both bottles still in hand, he caught up to the bird. "...I'm sorry." Now, together, they went down the stairs like normal people. "Do you think she would even accept me after all this?"

"No way to find out until you try. Besides. You ran away and yet she chased you all the way here from my sister's room. If that doesn't say something, then what does?"

"What is it with your sister anyway?"

"You're her doll, Sco- Pilot."

"Her doll?"

The bird sighed. "Ugh, look, it took me a while to get how this dark world stuff works, okay? If I told you something, would you make the same two promises as before?"

"I promise."

"Okay. All this business with the brawlers is my fault. You said 'the lightners' banished the citizens to these canyons? It's like Kris said. The canyons are my toy boxes. I recognize most of the brawlers and a lot of the citizens here. I am 'the lightners'. If I could get back home, you know, to the real wo - the light world, I could make all the brawlers disappear."

"You mean like a mass deportation."

"Yep, imagine them all just gone. No selling dust, no pointing guns at people. Imagine this whole place without the crime." Corner after corner, they retreaded their path back to the bar and sat down on an empty bench, hidden in plain sight to all the monsters and the patient barkeeper.

"But how? How is that even possible?"

"You're all just inanimate objects, Pi...Jandsome."

"Considering the feats I heard that lightners accomplished, we must all indeed seem like mere objects to you."

"No. I'm being literal here. You all exist in the light world, as objects. All those people, all those buildings, those are all my building block toys. They were 'banished' here because I met - because I was getting too old and put them all in a box, okay? I banished them all here."

"And me?"

"Dolls. Both you and Debbie. You're a plastic doll that came with a toy plane that she plays house with. Because where we're from, that's all you are. You're a toy. You're a child's plaything. My sister is looking for you, because she's 'your' lightner the same way I'm that of all the people here. Because of you, she's in as much danger as Janice is now. We all jumped head first into this world to find a plastic toy."

"Sounds like you could do with a drink as well." Pilot handed him the mild wine bottle, and Berdly did open it up to take a tiny sip from it before giving it back.

Now that they had both calmed down, the bird finally took that phone of his back out and gave Pilot a serious look. "Now, I promise, I won't tell her anything. If I call her, will you please let me make that call?" The grown man leaned back with his arms folded up. At last, he was going to make that call. He dialed the number, and after a few times, Janice did pick up the phone to say hello. "Hello? It's me again." He tried to laugh. "We had some trouble to sort out, but now I can talk. My name's Berdly."

The mature woman on the other end of the phone didn't seem the least bit startled or surprised. "I know. Pluma here told me all about you."

He could already hear her come closer. and not long after that, it seemed Janice handed the phone to his sister "Is it Berdo?" What a relief, she was fine. "Berdo? Where are you?"

He was a bit cross with her. "Where am I? Where are you? Why are you here?"

"We're looking for Scott."

"I know you're looking for Scott, but how - " He covered his face with one hand. "It doesn't matter, where are you? Where can I find you?"

"We're in a house in some big dark place with lots of pointy houses. Kris and the goat brought us here."

"Yes, yes, where is he? Is Kris with you?"

"No, him and the goat went to that big castle." Great, now there was a big castle all of a sudden. Where was there supposed to be a big castle?

He was getting frustrated. Getting any information out of her was impossible. "Look, just...are there any scary looking people outside? People with spiky clothes or big teeth?"

"There's no-one else anywhere." What was that supposed to mean?

He sighed. "Give me Debbie, will you?" And apparently she did. He apologized for all the inconvenience and gladly, Janice told him that it was all right. "So where exactly are you guys? Describe the place?"

"It's a town behind a heavy door. But it's quiet and I haven't seen anyone else here. I think we're all alone here."

"So no brawlers nearby?"

"Your friend's friend said they can't get here. They're just coming back from that door by the way." Perfect. So it really was some kind of safehouse. Effectively at least. He took a deep, calming breath. At last, he could relax. At least for a bit.

For a moment, he could hear all of them talking, then the phone was handed to someone else who didn't say a word. For quite some time. So Berdly decided to act on a hunch. "Kris?"

"Yes?" Yes, it was him.

"Where are you?"

"Behind a door."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. But where is that door?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Oh. Berdly began to see where Kris was coming from. He had to think. If they wanted to tag along with them, they needed a reason. Kris wanted to join up with him as little as he wanted to with Kris. He needed a pitch. He stared at Pilot for a moment, but he just shook his head and shrugged. "You're...you're looking for Pilot, right? I mean why else would Janice be with you?"

"Yes? So?" Kris didn't sound the least bit interested.

"Well me and Jandsome got our hands on a hot tip on where he could be." Pilot wasn't saying anything, but he was making wide and erratic gestures begging for Berdly not to do what he thought he was going to do. "He's still in this city. Our source doesn't want to talk to us if we reveal too much, but this might be it. We might be onto where he's gone."

More chattering was heard in the distance. Apparently, those four people were arguing over this, but eventually, Kris spoke to him again. "Brawlers spotted us, so Ralsei moved the door somewhere else. I don't know where. It's a big black double door with a Delta Rune on it. And a golden frame. Good bye."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait." It was too late. Kris had just hung up on him. "Oh no, how are we going to find them now?" Pilot picked out one of those badges from the infopage and pointed at it. "What about it?" Without further ado, he got up, both of them did, went outside, walked around a corner, waited until they were sure nobody was in range to see or listen, and placed it on the floor.

Pilot kneeled down, 'pressed' it and took a step back. It began to shine and above it, all of a sudden, a smaller version of the infopage appeared right in front of them. "Hello." It greeted them with a certain professional distance the 'real' one in the tower hadn't shown. "I am the infopage. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

He started to understand. These things really were a lot more useful than he expected. "Yes, we do. Can you tell me where we find a big black double door with a Delta Rune on it and with a golden frame?"

The infopage nodded, and next to him, a display appeared with an address on it. As fast as he could, the bird picked out his pen and notebook and noted down the address. Then he waved at the two of them. "Thank you for using the official infoBadge - trademark - and have a nice day." With that, he just vanished. And slowly dispersing into static, so did the badge.

"Where exactly are you going with this?"

"I have a plan." Berdly put away his notebook. He now knew where to go and what to do. "We string them along. Say we have a lead on where you are. This guy you got that cap from, what's he called, anyway?"

"Jevil. His name is Jevil."

"Jevil. We go to the circus, see if Jevil is there. Circus is at the bottom of the inner city, right? And the city hall is also in the inner city. So it's a lot closer to the city hall where we're now. From there, it's not as far any more. We string them along for as long as we have to, seal that fountain together, you stop hiding, I get home and give you back to Pluma, and then everyone's happy."

"That sounds like something, but..." Pilot slowed down. "...it still means I have to face Janice."

The younger-looking one just looked back at him with growing impatience. "You'll have to face her sooner or later either way. All this is doing is giving you more time."

The jester pulled himself together. "Yes. Time. All I need is a little more time."


	7. On the Sunny side of the street

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 07

On the sunny side of the street

* * *

It was a pity it had to end when it did. Susie was a bit bummed out when Noelle reminded her of how much time they had spent playing card games. It had really passed in a flash. When she got off her ass and made sure she had her stuff with her, especially her new set of playing cards, she couldn't help but chuckle thinking about it. She was having fun. Actually having fun. Every party was like another little thing to discover with Kris, Lancer and Ralsei.

She was so suckered in by this, she barely felt like leaving school at this point. The echo of her own steps in the hall was the only thing she could hear on her way out. It was strange that at this time in the evening, the building was even still open. Even afternoon classes ought to have been over for the most part, and in all the front parts of school, at least in the parts that weren't behind locked doors.

And yet the doors were still left open to look through. Nobody coming her way, or seeing her.

No-one would spot her. And so no-one would suspect that she was losing her edge or had done done something they would get mad about, when she left the building with a smile. Kris and Ralsei didn't suspect that Susie was up to no good when they were travelling together. Then again, most of the time, that was because they knew she was. They knew she was, and they kept trying to befriend her anyway. One of the many things that were weird about those two.

When she had taken a few steps outside, she took in the fresh breeze. The weather was cooling. But it took a little more than a little cold air to bother a tough dragon like herself. When she thought about it that way, it made sense that those two wimps humoured her. They were two sensitive little guys who needed someone tough to protect them.

She was only really aware of how much time had passed, when she noticed the sun being about to set. It was already casting shadows that covered the walkways on one side of each street. On other days, she would have stuck to those. On a day like today, she felt like avoiding the shadows. And the warm sunlight on her skin was something to enjoy. Sure, it was all a bit cold, but a lot warmer than wandering through the dark. She preferred to stay in this part of town for a while.

She took a turn that deviated strongly from her path home, up the road and to the little park, past the flower shop. As on many other days, the benches here were empty. It was quiet, for the most part. Still with her hands in her jacket pockets, she sat down. Even all the way here, she was still smiling. Nobody could hurt her after all, she felt invincible. The rustling of the leaves in the wind had a much higher pitch than that of the blocky leaves in the red forest.

Where she would make plans with Lancer to stop Kris and Ralsei from moving closer to the castle. She enjoyed every bit of that day. Whether she was only half-heartedly playing along with Kris and Ralsei's little 'hero' game, plotting against them and confronting them with each idea, even when she was fighting alongside them. Even the more serious parts and the fierce battles towards the end.

She wasn't sure whether she knew anyone whom she trusted to have her back other than those two after that day. In fact, she wasn't sure whether she could remember this feeling of having someone who had your back, and that you would repay in kind - at all. In all her life for that matter. It felt new to her.

The next gust of wind that rushed along between the trees just felt a little more cold and she pulled the front ends of her coat a little closer together. Perhaps it was a little late in the year to enjoy nature. And the shadows were growing a little taller. If she wanted to enjoy the last bits of sun, she couldn't spend ages lounging about here. She got up, but soon found herself slowing down when reaching the end of the trees and slipping between them instead of walking past them.

Towards the 'Flower King'. She knew who it belonged to. She never really interacted with Kris' old man, but at what little occasions there were at school, she could tell from what he looked like and who he talked to, that this was him. She couldn't just straight up march home like that. That wasn't like her. She never went through a day without doing at least something cool.

Like spraying random black lines onto a wall, when possible doing this over whatever 'art piece' someone else had drawn, painted or sprayed onto it. That or she broke or stole something. It didn't have to be something big, but doing it at all was sorta obligatory at this point.

Once she was sure Mr. Dreemurr wasn't anywhere in her line of sight, she ducked, waited for a moment when she was sure to know there was no-one watching, whether here, or on the other side of the road, and then snuck closer to that truck. There had to be something she could steal in there. But there wasn't. In the front of the tray was a closed bag of manure, and in the back, a watering can way too big for her to just bag and be off with, and a big bunch of now-wilted roses.

She shoved the contents that she could get to without climbing onto the truck to the side. There was something next to the roses. A little bag, and inside it, the bloom of a single rose. The only one that wasn't brown and brittle. More and more concerned about possible onlookers showing up, she shrugged off the rest of the search and decided to call it on that. The bloom of a rose had to do for her daily spoils.

She pulled it out of there, stuffed it in her pocket and vanished between the trees again, to circle back to where the benches were and stroll along the road as if nothing had happened.

Now she really couldn't hang out here any more. The way home was a bit longer. It was a little further away from school than its immediate vicinity, she wasn't as lucky as people like Kris or Kid. Most students had a school-season ticket they could use to come here by bus. She didn't, she went here by foot.

And as soon as she was past the last buildings, where the police had blocked off entry for several hours just yesterday, she made sure today's trophy was safely stashed away in her jacket pocket before she began to run. She ran through the trampled grass on the side of the roadway over to her home, like she did twice a day. Halfway at least. Then she stopped. The sun was still setting. You could already see the moon, but there was still a bit of sunlight left.

She decided to walk the rest of the way home. Nothing at home was running away. On the other hand, it was getting pretty cold, so she settled with marching home. And once past the field of fading grass, off to the left-hand side, away from the single family homes right on the street and further towards the tall apartment buildings, all of which towered over the surrounding shorter houses in tones of grey.

Upstairs, she let herself into the barely lit apartment. In the main room, opposite from the table clearly too big for only the two of them, her mother, so wide in stature that it was her that engulfed the comfy chair she sat on and not the other way around, was watching some staged reality tv program about culinary wonders that both she and Susie knew she would never try to recreate.

Susie knew better than to even look at the screen. It would only make her mouth water and turn her away even more from the still warm but anything but freshly cooked and barely edible, slimy stew that stood on the table, made by throwing random ingredients together. The only one of which she could still discern, were the half-torn peas. Susie sat down on the table to try eating as much of this stuff as she was capable of. Not like there was anything to eat at school.

And she barely had enough money to spend on cans to spray walls and maybe something to eat twice a week. Any additional disposable money she had, she lifted from other students when the teachers weren't looking. Kris was no exception here. If she didn't eat this, she might have to lift some money from Kris later. She forced herself to eat it. It didn't taste very well, but she was her mother and she was trying.

Wordless grunts made for greetings and while Susie ate, her mother asked her about school and was happy - or at least appeased - when she heard that Susie went to school in time for class. For once. And she was also happy to hear that while she didn't spend time with her friend from school, she did spend the afternoon playing card games with someone else. Susie was usually silent and avoided talking about what she did after school to avoid predictable fights.

Once she was done, it was time to hop in the shower. She took off her clothes, and let the water run. She only had three sets of trousers, and all of them were torn around the knees. Sometimes, people would look at her funny, because they thought they were those really, really expensive ones that came purposefully torn to be fashionable.

At last she had a few minutes with walls in all directions, with the only entrance locked from the inside. No-one to look at her, no-one to see her. No-one she had to worry about smelling weakness.

A few minutes all to her own, to think. Only a few minutes but it was something. Time to think about her day, or what of it mattered at least. She didn't find the dark world again. And Kris didn't seem that confident in finding it either. But he remembered Lancer, and Ralsei. Maybe it was just something that rarely happened. Before she could delve into it much further, she figured she was still on her own when in bed.

Once dried off, she left the bathroom without combing or even drying her hair and carried her clothes to her room. And inside, she closed the door. The not particularly bright lamp's yellow light gave her room overall an orange-ish tone. She had to be careful when navigating to the other side so she didn't step on one of the many random things that lay strewn across her room before she tossed most of her clothes in the closet, the doors to which were always open.

After that, she leaped onto her bed and pulled up the blanket to cover herself. She didn't feel sleepy, but she didn't regret going to bed earlier yesterday and wanted to repeat it. She just had to try.

Maybe if she lay in bed long enough, she would fall asleep.

* * *

Tap, tap, tap, tap. In the silence of Ralsei's kingdom, all they could hear for quite a while, was a human impatiently tapping his foot. Janice was in contact with Berdly via phone and apparently, they were on their way here. And thanks to Berdly's claim of having a lead on Pilot, Ralsei was able to get Kris to begrudgingly agree to wait here for him, so they could help Berdly and Jandsome with pursuing this ominous 'lead' they had. The prince, for one, was looking forward to it.

Kris was an enigma to him. Even now, that he was finally here with him, he wasn't the most talkative person. He never really told him anything about himself. And there was so much Ralsei wanted to know. What was his favourite colour? What kinds of foods did he like? What did he spend his days doing?

There was so much to find out, he was worried if he ever started outright asking him, he would get carried away, come across as though he was interrogating him and scare him off. Even if Kris didn't call Berdly a friend, he was a classmate and from the impressions Ralsei got, they knew each other for a long time. Hopefully, he knew all kinds of things about him.

The only thing other than tapping away that Kris did, was to occasionally open his inventory to check whether they had everything. They had put down most of what he had brought along and replaced it all with cakes. His bag was full of Ralsei's cakes. Then, it was finally time. The only adult among them came out of the little house, wrapped in her coat as usual and nodded. Ralsei's signal that Berdly and the jester were standing in front of the door.

In motions that sent the ground trembling, the door opened and led outside, straight to a little street. The door was set up in a tall concrete wall. At least a wall that had a colour that made one expect it to be concrete. And there they were. When the two groups met, the doors closed behind them as soon as Janice and Pluma had followed them outside. Kris and Berdly respectively stepped forward to face each other. "Hey."

With Berdly being the only one talking, apparently. "Are you going to be normal now?" Once he was sure, the human wasn't going to answer, he went straight for Pluma. He knelt down and grabbed her by the jacket. "What ARE you doing here?"

The little bird girl wasn't the least bit worried about anything that happened around here. "We're looking for Scott."

"I get that, but why didn't you stay in there?"

He was snapped at from the side by the blonde woman that stood next to him. "I am not hiding away while you spend your time doing who knows what." She picked up Berdly's sister. "And I am not leaving her alone in there either."

"We're not leaving until we find Scott!"

Upon hearing the more confident girl and seeing her stretch her tongue out at him, Berdly tried to suppress his rage and yet shot Jandsome a glare that everyone could see anyway. "Right. We're just going to have to deal with that."

To loosen up the mood, the prince came closer to shake Berdly's hand. And everything about the black boss monster raised his eyebrows. "Hello! You must be Berdly. I'm Ralsei!" But his demeanour was a lot less peculiar than that of Kris, which was a relief. One of his worries up to that point, was the addition of this 'prince' meaning they would walk around with two Krisses in all but name.

"I'm looking forward to travelling together with you. So where does this lead take us? Where do you need us to go?"

A voice cut into their conversation. A voice that they remembered, but not very fondly. "You guys ain't goin' nowhere." One by one, from around various corners, shady characters began to come around. Coats and trilbies messily wrapped over bodies that weren't meant to wear them. Each one with some firearm. One of them, the one that spoke up to give them all the cue, was the frilled dragon that Kris had paid off. "We ain't missin' out on this payout."

At once, the six that had just met huddled together, covering the human woman and the little bird she held. Berdly pointed right at him. "You guys already were paid off. What? You switching careers to begging?"

The lizard, the only one of them not with his weapon out, wasn't impressed. "Ain't that easy. That bit was peanuts even then. And you ain't on our turf no more. One guy said he spotted a second bounty." He nodded towards one of his colleagues. It was the raptor that attacked Kris and the others when they entered the door to Ralsei's kingdom for the first time. "Blue guy and the boy in green are gonna make us a lotta money. Enough to share. All we needed was a tip on where they'd be."

He nodded in the other direction. Towards the fat triceratops that served as an unseemly barkeeper where Berdly made his phone call.

Berdly faced him with a grin. "What's this, lardy? Snitching on your customers?" The dinosaur just shrugged it right off. He didn't appear the least bit remorseful.

"It ain't snitching unless you're talking to the cops." They were six, and they were coming closer. Their enemies stayed at a safe distance. They had to come up with something. "So how we gonna do this? You finna be nice and hand 'em over or what?"

The prince tried to step in. "There must be a less violent way to settle this."

He was only met with questioning looks. "Like what? A dance-off in the moonlight?" Everyone laughed at that. "Just to make that clear: We are NOT doing a dance-off."

"Jandsome..." Berdly began mumbling in the jester's direction, and as quiet as he could without being unintelligible.

"Yes?"

"You said you can do basically anything, right?"

"I suppose?"

"A smokescreen, possibly? And maybe bananas?"

"The former, yes, but I don't think I can do the banana swap if I can't see them."

"What about a flare? Shoot in the air and they're all distracted."

"Too many, they'd just shoot us down."

"Same goes for the smokescreen, they'd just fire blind shots and hit us anyway."

"You know." The prince chimed in on their little conversation. "Getting hit once or twice is not a problem. I can heal you back up."

Berdly raised an eyebrow. "You can heal us, just like that?"

"Yes."

His eyes narrowed and he faced Kris. "Dedicated healers, jesters, you're wearing armor, we're fighting bad guys, what's next, you use your shield and start tanking for us...Is this some kind of role playing game?"

"Not any more." The prince continued to talk on Kris' behalf. Not like his difficult classmate was talking to begin with. "For all that matters, we could all die here."

To his surprise, this was the thing that had Kris step closer and begin to point at everyone one by one to give orders. "All right, here's what we do. Berdly, you say something annoying." What was with his sudden change in attitude?

"Since when do you call the shots here?" The bird pouted as much as his sister did and folded up his arms.

"Please." Ralsei pushed himself between them and pleaded: "Not now. I don't know what it is that's bugging both of you, but please don't do this now."

This more reasonable friend of Kris' got Berdly to quickly realize why his classmate changed from not talking to giving orders. They were surrounded. They had to put their differences aside, at least for now. He sighed. "Okay. Go ahead."

And so he did. "Berdly. You say something annoying to one of them. Also, can you shoot one or two of them without seeing them? Best is that one over there." He pointed at the fat triceratops who had one of the corners the brawlers had come out of all to himself. He grabbed into his bag and pulled out a little mushed together piece of cake. "Jandsome, you do the smokescreen thing and stay with those two." He pointed at Janice and Pluma and then back at the triceratops.

"You three make a little circle along the wall so Berdly has a clear shot and run right that way and then around the corner. If he's still standing when you're there, you can still do the banana swap. Ralsei, you come with me. And Berdly." Still unhappy with seeing the same guy he blamed on being stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere take charge, he listened. "Run straight at him, shoot him as often as you have to and then follow the others. Don't worry about us."

He was putting it in an awkward way, but Berdly got what he meant. "I can try." The fat dinosaur gave him a lot of room for error. Maybe if he was lucky enough, he could continue with the raptor next to him, too. And he already had an idea what to say. He started speaking loud enough for the brawlers around them to hear him. "Hey flappyears!"

The lizard who, whether or not purposefully, had long been presenting his frills, began to wrinkle up. "Yes, you! What's your problem the citizens anyway?"

"'They don't belong here."

"Really? What's with those clothes you're wearing then?"

The lizard snuck a quick glance at everyone else's clothes and his own. They fit into the era this whole city was emulating, but something was always off. The spiky shoulderpads or belts, the ammunition belts practically protruding out of their jackets, it all looked like they were people dressed as bikers who flimsily tossed vintage attire on top of it and called it a day. "What about 'em?"

"Look at them. All those bumps and tears. It all somehow doesn't fit, does it? The clothes look kind of out of place on you." The lizard began to bear his teeth. "Or maybe it's not the clothes. The clothes fit in here perfectly. The clothes look like they belong here. The only thing that has no business being here, is you!"

He was more than just bearing his teeth now. The lizard reached for his holster and drew his weapon. The moment he did this, Kris summoned his shield, stepped in the way of where he expected him to shoot and shouted at the jester: "Now!" Two loud bangs followed, one being a gunshot, one the smoke bomb that immediately covered everything. He felt the pain from blocking that bullet and slammed the cake piece right into his face.

The smoke burned in all of their eyes and only spurred them on to hurry with going forward all the more. Kris summoned his sword and charged right into the smoke, towards where that reptile stood with Ralsei right behind him. More gunshots were to be heard all around. He surged straight to his target with his sword raised and when he arrived, swung down with no mercy, cutting right through the jacket and burying it in the lizard.

He cut half of one of his frills right off his head and the now slightly less frilled dragon screamed with pain while bleeding from every part the human struck. Before the reptile had too much time to react, Kris raised a leg, kicked him and used the force of his leg to help pull his sword back out and then strike him right again. This time he dug so deep, he was half-way to cutting the guy's arm off.

Within the same motion started with his second strike, he dispelled his sword and ran straight past him and to the next target. The prince knew what he was asked to come along for, shot and pacified the severely injured brawler and ran right after Kris again.

Berdly ran towards his target as fast as he could without compromising his main task. stretched his hands out, aimed his two strange firearms right towards his target and began to fire as consistently as he could.

He had to put all his strength into fighting against the recoil, he wasn't sure whether you were supposed to fire so many times in quick succession, but he had to stop when a stinging pain hit his side and dug its way across his chest. "I'm hit!" From his side, Jandsome shouted something similar.

Kris was just done injuring a second brawler enough for Ralsei to pacify him, and swiftly grabbed a cake out of his bag and handed it to the prince, who knew to run back to where they had sent the others. They pacified the collapsed barkeeper on the way and followed the others around the corner where they had a few moments of cover. Once they had caught up with the others, the prince cast a spell to heal Berdly and smashed the cake in the jester's face.

The human ran after the prince and stopped when he was done healing the others. He fumbled out another piece of cake to eat, tapped Ralsei twice with his wrist and then grabbed the prince's with his hand. "Stay with me!" He pulled him closer and behind the wall and had the others follow him. He tipped Berdly on the shoulder. "Can you shoot them to distract them?"

"You mean cover them in suppression fire." The human nodded. Apparently, Berdly got what he was trying to say. Their little maneuver forced the still coughing brawlers to come out of the smoke. He peeked out to know when they did. The moment they did, he raised his shield and charged right back at the remaining three with Ralsei in tow. The moment Berdly realized what Kris had been planning, he was all the more shocked and confused.

"You crazy weirdo, come back here!" Nonetheless he drew both his weapons again and did as he was told, he covered the one on the right who was aiming at the bounties in fire and hit him multiple times. As soon as they took a few more hits, Kris ate his next piece of cake and fed Ralsei one, too. Right before putting away his shield and cutting down the next brawler.

By then, there was only one left. And he shot Kris twice right in the chest, before getting hit twice himself. After that, it just took a few more shots from Ralsei and Berdly until that last one couldn't stand any more either. The pain was too much for Kris to keep running and he collapsed onto the pavement. Ralsei was stressed, but not as panicked as Berdly expected someone in the light world to be.

He just held his hand down at his friend, it glowed faintly in various colours, and just like that, two bullets fell out and he had the strength to get back up again. The bird was still out of breath from all the excitement and looked back to see the other three slowly come back out of hiding. "Geez. What's gotten into you?" Kris got back up and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Which Berdly didn't think was his primacy concern, as he and Ralsei's faces both were covered in bits of cake.

"They outnumbered us four to six and now..." He looked around to see all of them lie on the ground. "Just how?"

The prince smiled at him. "We burned through half the cakes we brought. We're going to have to get new ones."

"What the hell are you doing?" The very next thing Kris had proceeded to do, was to kneel next to one of their downed adversaries and search through his pockets, until he found his wallet. He opened it and just took all the money he found and put it in his bag. "Don't these guys need medical attention?"

"Don't worry." The younger prince calmed him down. "People recover from wounds like that in the dark realm. If you just give them enough time. I would worry more about what they do after they wake up."

"What do you propose?" The jester had arrived and Janice felt it was safe enough to place Pluma back on the ground.

Kris, who was still for the most part busy looting all the brawlers got up from the third one. "Ralsei. The bounties."

"Oh right. The police offered to lock any brawlers up that we bring them. And we still have a debt to pay off."

"Well in this case." When they looked back at the jester, suddenly, there was a four-wheeled cart next to him, with a horizontal bar at the front, perfect to pull it along. "Let us bring them as many as we can." With little trouble, he just up and picked up two of them and put them on the cart. Then he picked up three more and just carried them on his shoulders. "Let's go."

It wasn't big enough to add the overweight dinosaur, but the cart was hard enough to pull for Kris and Berdly as is. While Berdly checked his phone to know where to go, his classmate couldn't help but ask: "Ralsei aren't these people all going to wake up by the time we're at the station?"

The prince only chuckled. "I wouldn't worry about that." He was flustered and needed a moment to come up with his answer. "The pacify spell I used on them lasts a little longer than the one in the card kingdom."

"You just have a stronger one?"

"Yes. I thought I would need this one here, the people in the card kingdom were nice for the most part. These people are much more intent in killing us."

Now with all their worries in tow, they made their way to the nearest precinct, loaded off all the unconscious darkners. The cops were vague on how much of his debt was settled with those five arrests, but Kris figured that was so they could be flexible with when it was paid off. Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen. But they did get quite the payout, most of which Kris kept for himself. Berdly insisted that he got his share.

Once Kris agreed to pay up, he leveraged this to find out a little more about this lead that Berdly promised. "So where does your 'trail' lead us?"

"Oh, uh." He tried to laugh off the sudden awkwardness. "Right. We have to get to the inner city. The bottom level to be precise." Not because of what lay right ahead of them, but because he wasn't sure where to take this after they met this 'Jevil' person. What would he say? He couldn't just cross this bridge when he got to it. He had to be prepared, but couldn't figure out how.

The prince assured him that they could find a way there. If they were lucky, they could use his door to get closer. They went back, past the unconscious brawler they left behind and passed through the door. Berdly was a bit shaken up by the impact of it closing, but soon enough, while Kris and Ralsei rushed ahead to get more cakes, the bird slowly stumbled across the bricks that made up the pavement of this dark kingdom.

The first thing he noticed, towards the northern end, were the signs. He was told all the houses were empty. At least in so far that nobody was here, but judging by the signs that had been put up at four of them, the prince had already designated one of them to be for some weapons- or armor salesperson, one for an innkeeper, one for a different kind of merchant, and one sign just had a questionmark on it. It implied that he intended to fill this place with someone.

But if Canyon City was the two toy boxes in his room, then where exactly was this kingdom?

Once he had made certain he wasn't imagining this, he walked back and found the open door to the house Janice had mentioned in their time texting and talking on the phone. He shrugged and went in there to sit down on the couch. It was pretty comfortable. Those two were taking their time with those cakes, either that, or that castle was pretty big. But now, he wasn't in such a rush. It was so quiet here. His worries were unfounded, Pluma really was safe here.

It was what came next, them leaving and venturing out there again, that he had to worry about. He really wished Janice and his sister just agreed to sit tight in here and wait while Berdly and Pilot would come up with a way to get him to pull himself together.

Speak of the devil, in big steps, the big jester sat down next to him. "So. What has you so deep in thoughts?" He was talking with that squeak. He was completely in-character again.

Berdly took a leaf out of Kris' book and just stared at him. If Pilot wasn't so terrified and so ashamed of having been so terrified, they wouldn't have been in this mess to begin with. Eventually, he did speak up. "You really should tell her..."

"Shhh!" He was immediately shushed. "Why don't we talk about something else? Your friend is far from hearing range, as is the little girl you're so protective of. And I can see right from here..." He pointed towards the window, through which they could see the road to the castle.

"...if they are coming. So. This grudge you have with your human friend is becoming a stumbling block. Tell me more about this common friend of yours that you mentioned when I asked about your grudge. I believe in the heat of your anger over our predicament, you mentioned a name. Noël?" He pronounced it in a strange way.

"Noelle." With a swing of his hand, the jester summoned a rose out of nowhere and handed it to the off-put bird. He stared at the rose, and then it dawned him. "Oh god. My clock!"

"What?"

"If the entire area is my room, and the cliffs were my closet...oh god. Kris saw the roses. He is never going to let this go!" He leaned onto his legs, ran his hands down his face and mumbled into his palms. "By the angel, he's never going to stop asking what's in my closet, is he?"

In a mockery of any kind of seriousness, the jester sat leaning his head on one of his arms and an exaggerated pout on his face. "If he will not let go of it either way, you might be best off coming clean."

"That's rich coming from you."

The jester's eyebrows rose. "Doesn't make it less true. Now this friend of yours, this 'Noelle'." With another swing of his hand, the rose was out of Berdly's and back in his own. "An interesting name. Don't you think? 'Noelle'. I believe it means 'Christmas' in another language. What are the chances?"

Luckily, they didn't have much more time to talk as Kris and Ralsei already came marching past the house. It was time to set out. While Berdly and Jandsome were still on the way, the prince made the doors open and asked Janice to check where they were.

"Still not quite there."

"I'm sorry." The prince walked outside and turned around waiting for the others to follow. "It appears this is as close to the inner city as I can get us." A look on the map revealed that they were on the very edge of the outer city. Quite a bit along the edge, there was a tunnel that led to the other canyon. "There might be a range of reasons why. We were lucky there were so many possible places for my door as it is. There usually aren't that many."

Now, they knew to be a lot more careful than they were when they first wandered through these streets. They kept to the wall on the inside and peeked around the corner at every crossing. And this time, they were six. They had their eyes open in all directions. For good reason apparently.

One time, when they peeked around the corner to the inside of the canyon, they saw two raptors patrol along a distant crossing. Luckily for them, they weren't intent to turn their way and went in the opposite direction instead.

Finally, eventually, they came by the dreaded tunnel. It was well-lit. Bright yellow light shone on the walls. And their worries proved well-founded, as the broad tunnel, wide enough for six tracks for vehicles to run on, had a makeshift barricade made of two trucks positioned sideways on both ends, leaving open a not so wide area in the middle, which was guarded by three brawlers.

One walked to the side bearing his weapon, but luckily, none of them spotted the jester when he peeked around the entrance. Only three, and they were close together and far away from the corner they were hiding behind. Without any doubt, they were going to pull something bad, there was no other reason for these guys to block off the tunnel like that. But going through the entire situation again, the a grin began to creep up the bird's beak.

They weren't looking for him and Jandsome, that was why the two of them had such an easy time walking through the city. They were only ever a lead to get to Kris and Ralsei. So he had some room to interact with the brawlers without getting attacked on sight.

He asked Jandsome to give him a little headstart and then follow. And then, in complete relaxation, he came around the corner and strolled towards the barricade, while making sure to clearly move to the right, so that Jandsome had a clear line of sight. As expected, one of the three shady figures, immediately approached him with an hopen hand. "Not so fast, sunnyboy."

That wide smile never left Berdly's face. "Why? Are you going to arrest me?"

The guy who stopped him, a hammerhead who had long lost his hat if he ever had one, shook his head. "Not exactly. Nobody gets past here without paying a toll."

"Really? A toll? It's not a different country over there. It's not even a different town. You can't seriously make demands like that." Berdly snuck a glance to the side and saw that Jandsome had followed him, but was staying at a distance.

The corners of the shark's mouth, already naturally turned backwards, were only stretching themselves further down. "Looks like we got someone who doesn't know who's running the show here."

Now all three were walking Berdly's way, and the bird, calm and collected, moved further to the right and backed off by a bit. In fact, he wasn't just calm, he was laughing at them. "Running the show? Really? You guys? You're basic grunts, you're not running anyone's show."

"Okay, that's it." As planned, he had angered them and they all began reaching for their holsters. Only that, as planned as part of their routine, they were all fixated on the bird that was angering them, and didn't notice that all their pistols were bananas. Dangling their real firearms by the trigger guards that spanned around the triggers in front of them with a wide smile, the jester backed off as well and made way for the rest of their group to follow.

Berdly pulled out one of his weapons and began aiming at them. "Drop your bananas, now!" Two of them followed suit. A third one reached into the open door of one of the trucks and pulled out a rifle. But with four loud shots that sent shivers through the bird, the brawler was gunned down immediately and with four more shots, both his friends were hit twice, one of which reached for his friend's rifle.

By then, Berdly had himself collected enough to shoot each one once more, while Ralsei rushed right towards them to pacify one after the other. Berdly wasn't the only one that was shocked, and everyone slowly followed the robed goat boy that had drawn his weapon and emptied an entire magazine to finish this.

They came close enough that after a short sprint, the prince could check on the body. "Not quite dead." With one more glow of his hand, he pacified the last one. This little escalation left the bird worried that this one patrol might have heard the shooting, but as it would turn out as time went on, his constant checking whether they did, wasn't warranted, this time at least.

Ralsei on the other hand, was happy to get an upgrade. He stuffed the weapon away that the commissioner had given him and while Kris was busy emptying their wallets, he got busy searching for ammunition. He got an upgrade now. A semi-automatic rifle.

Kris still couldn't help but address the elephant in the room. "Ralsei, what was that."

The prince was a bit ashamed guessing from how he retreated a bit under the cover of his robe and hat. "That was...me learning from yesterday. With King. We can't be hesitant any more, not when we're dealing with people that are serious."

"With King?" This Ralsei was about their age, but he seemed so timid most of the time. Berdly got curious as to what experience made him just gun someone down in cold blood like this, for all they knew, that guy could have been dead. And on their way through the tunnel, with a jester who carried three unconscious brawlers in a cart in tow, Kris and Ralsei recounted their battle with the king of spades.

The only comment the bird had in the end, was to nod and say: "Really? Healing the guy that's trying to kill you? That really wasn't the smartest thing to do." As usual, his wide grin wasn't met with a lot of approval, as would his responses as they told him more about their previous journey.


	8. Dream a little Dream of Him

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Love in Plastic

Chapter 08

Dream a little Dream of him

* * *

"If I could fly like birds on high, then straight to her arms I'd go sailing..." The surprisingly catchy tune of a man singing came out of a radio, accompanied with trumpets, saxophones, a drum set and other instruments. She had to cover her eyes, the light was blinding her too much. Under groans of discomfort, Susie clenched her eyes shut and pushed herself up by her hands.

When she pulled her eyes back open, she realized why the light was too bright. Her eyes had been closed, but she had been looking straight into a bright, strange-looking lamp. She was sitting on the smooth sheets and the soft, even mattress of a king-sized bed. She ran her fingers along the cool surface with its beige, abstract pattern. Then she noticed something. Her skin tone had changed. She wasn't purple any more.

She raised her hands and stared at them. They had taken on the same colour she remembered she had in the dark world. And off her wrists hung the same black leather wristbands with solid, golden spikes. She was in a room, quite a bit bigger than her own. There were night lights to each side of the bed.

In fact, there were lamps on stands in all corners and in key locations around some of the wider comfortable pieces of furniture to sit on in here. Of which there were a lot. The walls were coloured in a soft yellow and drawn-over with a thin brown pattern in the shape of flames that crossed each other in a zig-zag pattern.

She began to shuffle off the bed. The floor was covered in smooth tiles that matched the colour scheme of the walls and a carpet was laid out on top of most of it. There was only one way out of this room short of jumping out of a window. A wide-open door that led into a narrow corridor. A red carpet with vine patterns woven on covered it, and the walls were lined with paintings in golden frames that were carved with a high level of detail.

The paintings all depicted 'waves' or floating 'streams' of people blending into each other while horned creatures stood at the sidelines and burned them or poked or carved away at them with tridents and scythes. "Do you like them?" That came out of nowhere and had even someone like her pull together. A mere metre away to her side, stood a young man.

A caprine creature with a smug expression on his face, a Boss Monster, but his fur was black and his eyes and what little opening there was of his mouth and nose, glowed. A lot like Ralsei. "Is there something wrong? You appear as though you had seen a ghost." He wore a complete snow-white tuxedo and a complete snow-white set of formal attire to match it, down to shoes and gloves. The sleeves of his suit sported light blue cufflinks with white pentagrams engraved on them.

Under his suit jacket, but over his white shirt, hung a light blue tie with a white upside-down cross at the bottom of it. And through a hole cut and woven specifically for that purpose, a top hat was attached to one of his black horns. She just stood there, holding up her elbow in a defensive manner.

Suddenly with a much more timid stance, the stranger took a step back and placed the tips of his fingers on his chest. "Oh goodness, I am terribly sorry. I assumed from your rebellious attire that you weren't so easy to scare."

"What? What?" This man had her from terrified to angry within a moment's notice. "Who are you anyway?"

"I apologize. How very indelicate of me." He kneeled down in front of her, grabbed her hand and sent cold shivers through her skin with a kiss on the back of her hand. She pulled it away immediately and stumbled backwards. "You must be so very confused. Welcome to the second circle of my humble little hotel." She raised her hands and as she expected, she was able to summon the strongly curved scythe she had for an axe, but it dispersed right again in her hands.

"Now now, why the hostility? After all, you're my guest." She backed off further, back into the room with the bed.

She tried to intimidate him by shouting at him and bearing her teeth while she did it. "Where am I? I'm back in the dark world, right? Where's Kris?"

In a slow, smooth motion, the man in the suit took on an overly dramatic thinking pose. "Dark world? Now whatever in the world is that?"

Now, with a few sofas around her that made her feel like she had at least a bit cover, she stopped and remained in place. "Don't play dumb with me! I look like that!" She pointed onto her arm.

He shot her arm a tired glance. "Yes. Are you supposed to look any different?"

"Well...yes!"

Again with the tips on his chest, the caprine man shook his head, the top hat sitting tight on his horn with no sign of being loose. "I feel a little insulted that you insist on something you bring up out of the blue. Why would you not take me at my word? Does this room not look like a hotel room to you?" She calmed down a little and gave the room more of a close look. It was a bit big for a hotel room.

"You are in the 'Suite for the Longing'. A place you wouldn't find yourself in - if there was no reason. So, if this is not too imposing, ask yourself: How did you get here?" He walked over to the see-through curtains and pulled them aside. Susie couldn't see anything behind them. After that, he pointed to the window and turned back around to her. "Did you climb in through here?"

She shook her head. "Oh heavens. Let's take this slow then, shall we? What is the last thing you remember before coming here? Climbing through any windows? Crawling through any shafts? Turning invisible and sneaking your way through these empty halls?"

He slid his gloved hand along the lean of a very comfortable looking couch that stood in the middle of the room, right in front of Susie. "Please, calm down, relax, lay down. I will humour you as much as I need to." Out of nowhere, a little black cloud formed around his right hand, which then converged into a lengthy, narrow form and took on that of a pair of glasses.

Then the cloud vanished and left behind an actual pair of glasses, which he placed on his face, before making a clipboard with paper and a pen appear the same way and sitting down on a comfy chair that lay at the wall, arranged to allow him to look at the couch he had directed her to.

Susie stood there for a bit, ready to run away or fight him again, intently waiting what he was doing, but he just sat there, staring at her through those glasses. "By the way, apologies for delaying introductions so much. Just where are my manners today? I never even told you my name. If you like to keep it formal, you can call me Doctor Luxon." She continued to stare at him, waiting for something happened.

Nothing happened. So very carefully, she walked over to the couch and sat down on it. "Let's go back to the beginning. The very first conspicuous mention you made were that of a 'Dark World'. What was the reason why you assumed that was where you were?"

"Where else am I supposed to be? Look at me."

"I'm assuming this means you're not supposed to look the way you do?"

"No, my skin's darker and I'm supposed to have brown hair and I don't have these boots and..."

"I understand, different body, different clothing. Just like with my other patient. And the very first conclusion you come to is 'I'm in the dark world'?"

"Why? What are you implying?"

The goat man shrugged. "Well, back to my original question. How did you find yourself in here? Wait. Let's do it the other way round. This 'Dark World', how do you get there as far as you know?"

She found herself stammering. She didn't really know in great detail how she got there. "Well I - well I sort of fell into a closet."

Her host nodded. "All right, a cupboard. And I assume this means the last thing you did before coming here was falling into a cupboard as well."

She had to admit to herself that she was a bit dumbfounded. "No."

"Well? What is the last thing?" It was a little fuzzy. She had to think. Upon looking at him again, he appeared completely calm. "Take your time, just try to remember the last thing you recall from the previous day, latch onto that and retread your steps from there." He wasn't about to get up and attack her. So she began to shift and lie down as he had first asked her to. All while trying to remember. "So school was over, and then me and a classmate were playing card games."

"All right."

"And then it was getting late, so I went home and had dinner, and a shower and I...I..."

"Yes?"

"I went to bed."

"This is the last thing? You went to bed."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remember. There had to be more, right? But there wasn't. "Yeah. I just went to bed."

Now with a less stern and once again more mischievous expression, he leaned forward by a bit. "May I suggest an alternate explanation than your 'Dark World'? You're dreaming. This is a dream. Now you are correct in that this is probably not your everyday dream. There has to be a reason why you landed in this particular suite and in this particular circle. People don't find their way here without an issue of particular nature to sort out."

"People?" Susie wasn't quite sure what game this guy was playing. "If this is all my dream, shouldn't it be all about me or something? Who else is there?"

"Well I used to be visited by this tremendously distressed young doe who would talk about her worries about a friend of hers. But a few weeks ago, she came to the conclusion that she was misreading signals and stopped coming altogether. The issue wasn't resolved, but it would seem she has moved on. But enough about her, let's focus on you. You fall asleep, next thing you know, you're here.

To find out why, we need to pinpoint what exactly you were thinking about when you fell asleep. This Dark World must be important if you're willing to take such mental leaps to convince yourself you reached it. It must be at the root of why you're here. Tell me everything you know about it. I want to hear the whole story. From the very beginning. The day that you visited this 'Dark World' for the very first time, how did it begin?"

The moment Susie made the faintest sound, she could hear the clicking of him readying his pen to take notes with it. "So I went to school, but I was late. As usual."

"All right."

"And I didn't really wanted to have any classes. So I kinda made the teacher's chalk disappear."

He began taking notes and loudly announcing what they were. "All right, bad work ethic and kleptomaniac tendencies."

She faced him to snap at him for that one. "Hey!"

"Those are only soft notes to know what patterns to look for. Do go on, anything you tell me stays between the two of us."

She leaned down with her head to the side, so she wasn't staring at the light that hung from the ceiling. "So she sent me to get new chalk. But I had the old chalk still on me and I knew if I kept it on me, they'd search me and find it, so I just ate it to make it disappear for good. But then Kris caught me eating it."

"I assume that is bad."

"I knew that if he told on me, that'd be the end. I'm gone. They'd kick me out of school no problem." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that."

He would just continue to note down and leisurely announce all the notes he took. "Caught in a vulnerable position by - 'Kris' - . For one we have a name now. You mentioned this name three times now, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah. So I - uh - I."

"Yes? Go on."

"I sorta grabbed him and uh." Her voice turned more and more silent, the longer she went on. "I kinda...said I'd kill him."

For a second, she was worried that this would be what escalated this whole interaction into some hostile encounter. Instead, the man in the suit continued to take unflattering notes. "Signs of violent tendencies. Also, quick question, if you were going to such extremes, you must have been pretty sure he was going to tell on you, weren't you?"

"Yeah?"

"Now why would that be?"

She vocalized annoyance with this subject. "Whatever. It doesn't matter." She couldn't help but notice that he was quietly noting something down. From what she could guess, the fact that she didn't want to talk about that exact subject. "I didn't do it, okay? I changed my mind, because his mom was my favourite teacher."

"Playing favourites I see. What distinguishes his mother from the other teachers?"

"She..." She looked away. In fact, for a while, dead silence dropped between them. "There was a time when she was the one that actually tried to get me to do school work. The others just thought of me of the girl that's gone soon anyway."

"Possible abandonment issues."

"So I let him go. And I took him along to get new chalk in the supply closet."

"Aha! That's when you got to the Dark World, right?"

"Yes." She giggled. "When I opened it, the whole hallway turned dark and Kris got all scared. But we went inside. And that's that, basically. The closet was all weird, and then we fell into the Dark World."

"All right. So good so far. Please go on, give me every detail." And so she did. In great detail, she began recounting her entire first journey through the dark world, leaving no event, no thought, nothing that caught her attention unmentioned.

* * *

The jumbled group of six had to repeat the play from before soon upon reaching the end of the tunnel, as the other exit was blocked off by brawlers as well. At least this time, the jester thought a step further and made sure that the automatic rifle the enemy had lying around was swapped out for an umbrella by the time it was picked up. That way, a lot less shooting was necessary. Upon first setting foot upon the inner city, they noticed the difference almost immediately.

The very first buildings they came across were in complete ruins. The roofs were gone, either on the ground on the inside or the loose connectable pieces were strewn across the street. Any remaining chatter of past exploits with Susie died down when they saw the kitchen utensils lying on the floor inside, furniture ripped apart, and its presumed inhabitant in the middle of it, with bullet holes in their lifeless body's chest telling the whole story on what happened to them.

And around only two more street corners, they spotted the possible culprits. Behind a crane with a wrecking ball big enough to crush those buildings like that, with shaking hands and arms, a citizen lay with his back to the pavement. A homeless person judging by his torn and dirty clothes. "Please, have some mercy!" He begged for his life, terrified of the raptor that stood over him with a pistol pressed onto his forehead. "Next we - tomorrow! Just please give me one more day, I'll have the money."

The raptor looked over to his partner, a shark in black leather, with silver spikes looking out of every piece of clothing he wore, who just shrugged. "Bled dry, buddy. Ain't gettin no more cash outta this one. Just clap'im"

The poor man was panicking. He shrieked and begged to be spared, but before he - or Berdly and the others who witnessed this, could say anything, he was put to death with two clear shots. A nod from his partner signaled the raptor that they were being watched. With a tired expression, he faced the approaching strangers. "Whatchu lookin' at, huh?"

As soon as they were close enough, Berdly was the one to speak up. "You already took everything else from that guy, did you have to kill him?"

"Deserved it for breathin' our air. Whole canyon's our turf. What y'all clickers build in it is ours. That a problem?"

"Is that some attempt at street jargon or do you just have a speech defect? What? Is getting one language right asking too much?"

"Wrong answer! You's gettin' cla-" He was drawing his weapon, but between the jester's antics, Kris charging right at him without a word and Berdly having his weapons already drawn, this fight didn't last nearly as long as he seemed to expect. Within mere moments, both were already collapsing onto the street and within another one, the second one was pacified. In fact, this was a trend that began with the previous group on their way out of the tunnel.

When they weren't taken by surprise, outnumbered or surrounded, these brawlers weren't nearly as much of a problem as they seemed when one of them pointed a gun at them for the first time. Now loaded with two carts and one jester's arm worth of unconscious criminals, they paced onward, following the bird's map to the nearest precinct.

Granted, that didn't get rid of the demolition equipment, but at least the two operating it were behind bars, and the bounties gave Kris more money to spare.

When they first arrived at the police station, they immediately noticed another massive difference to the other canyon. A large area from below where they expected the city hall to be, all along the outer end of the canyon to right where they stood, was walled off. Completely. All the way to the ceiling.

And those walls looked a lot more solid than the easily broken apart bricks that made up most of the other buildings here. In fact, they followed this massive wall out of curiosity to see how close it would get them to this canyon's central car park and as a matter of fact, it got them really close. They were careful, but they could see the entrance to the central structure from where the wall was.

There was a broad, six-track road leading straight from one to the other. Pilot and Janice seemed to know what this was, but unwilling to talk about it. All they said when asked about it, was that they weren't going to find any help on the other side of that wall. And when asked about that, they explained why that seemingly useless road was there. Like in the other canyon, the rough layout of the city here was the same on all levels, and at the very top, that road actually did lead somewhere.

The sights of comfortable-looking homes brought to ruin for some brawlers' entertainment never left them. Sure, there were homeless in the outer city. But here, the homeless had bigger problems, seeing as most of them were just corpses that littered the ground and while there probably were a few empty houses here and there in the outer city, but at least they weren't nearly as many as here and they weren't outright destroyed and torn down either.

Even if it was a slow progression, this city was turning into a wasteland.

They took a long detour, the same path roughly as Ralsei did when they were on the way to his door for the first time. And to make everything worse, they spotted another pair of very obvious enemies on the way. This time though, they agreed to not taunt or antagonize them and to just take them by surprise.

Once it was settled, Kris nodded and pointed at the corner, behind which the two suspects were standing and whispered: "Berdly, take aim." He then summoned his sword and charged right at them. Berdly did as suggested. He took out both his guns, rushed around the corner and calmly pointed both at one of the two reptiles. But now, something was different.

Something appeared on his target, the same glowing circle and crosshairs that appeared on the big, three-headed rose creature in the very beginning of their travels here. He waited for the outer circle to reach the inner one, and then pulled the triggers. The recoil that pushed his hands back was much stronger than with regular shots. To escape Kris' swings, not knowing he was not aiming for him, the reptile Berdly targeted, jumped to the side.

And the bullets he had fired, changed course mid-flight, hit him in the chest and pierced right through him. He had to repeat this in his mind to believe it. They changed course mid-flight. In all this time ever since his very first fight, he never really used his weapon that way. Then again, he didn't calmly aim at someone like that either, he always fired away immediately or didn't point his weapons at anyone to begin with.

This one double shot was all that was needed from him, too. The sheer force of the attack had launched its target back and onto the ground. By the time Berdly was done staring at the smoking barrels of his guns, Kris and Ralsei had already pacified both enemies. "What's wrong?" The prince noticed that something was concerning him and Kris followed him.

Berdly looked up from his pistols. "I - I saw a thing. I think these things have homing bullets."

The human nodded. "I saw it, too. You used this on the Roserus, too."

"How?"

"It's your magic attack."

The bird raised an eyebrow. "Now that's nonsense if I ever heard any." He swung his hand, and a fan of orange feathers manifested out of thin air and flew in the directions the pointy ends were aimed at before vanishing. "Those are my magic attacks."

The prince shook his head. "The dark world has its own magic." Berdly just looked over at Kris who presented his sword, with the guard that separated the grip from the blade, shaped like the wings of a bat, dispelled his sword, summoned it again, dispelled it, summoned it again, dispelled it again. Overall, summoning a sword out of nowhere was indeed a pretty magical thing to do, and not something a human should have been capable of. "This could be your magic attack, like Susie's."

"What magic attack does Susie have?"

In-between searching the reptiles for money and ammunition for Ralsei, the prince went on to describe her charging her axe with a purple glow and then swinging it to launch a purple energy wave at the enemy. But when he then got to the part where even Kris could charge her axe with the red glow of his soul, the bird stopped him right there. "Okay now that's just stupid. You're messing with me now."

"No, it's true. Kris, show him!"

The human shook his head. "I don't think I can just do that. It just happened in the heat of the moment somehow."

"Yes. Sure. Heat of the moment. What else?" When they were done looting, they made sure to pace ahead at once. Straight to the car park to head all the way down. They didn't slow down until they had passed quite a bit and were sure they weren't going to run into anyone hostile to them for a while.

"So what do you call it?"

Once they could stop for a moment, the bird faced Ralsei. "Call what?"

"Your magic attack."

"I don't think it needs a name."

Kris raised a finger at him. "Susie called hers the rudebuster. And she's rude. You're smug and you shoot them, so...the smugshot?"

Berdly could only laugh this off in a dismissive way. "We're not calling it the Smugshot."

"Aw, come on, why not." That one comment with the name was all Kris had to contribute. The prince continued to pursue Berdly on this though. "It even fits because all the bad guys here are criminals. So they all have mugshots."

"I said, we're not calling it the Smugshot."

The further down they went, the less people littered the sides of their path and the darker it got outside. The 'moons' didn't shine so bright down here. At the bottom level, it got brighter again, but in a different way. The pale light of the lamps that replaced the nonexistent moon didn't shine through the structure's openings at all. Instead, all light came from the ground level itself. Every square metre but the exit was crowded with people.

For once, plastic monsters and brawlers alike, in an area, and no-one killing anyone. At least they had this impression, until while carefully pressing through the masses of people, they saw the crowd open up ahead. The gap opened further their way and past them into the carpark. And once the opening reached them, they saw why.

Two citizens in scrubs carried a stretcher into the car park and towards an ambulance that stood inside with its back doors open. On the stretcher was a crocodile, covered in blood and big, gaping wounds, with tatters of his black leather shoulderpieces hanging off the edge. Ralsei tipped at one of the gawkers to ask him what was going on. "What happened to him?"

"He challenged the clown. No-one's beaten him until now. Isn't that why you're here?"

"Why of course!" Jandsome very swiftly slid between them and pushed them aside, only to then pull out a few multicoloured juggling balls. "From one clown to another, we are here to ask him for advice." To help distract both the people he traveled with, as well as any other onlookers who might tell too much about the clown, he began juggling them and occasionally adding one ball, once the onlookers had made way for him to move around his arms freely.

If it had depended on the street lights or the large lamps at the ceiling of each floor, the entire bottom floor would have been pitch black. However the area was illuminated by the yellow and red light of plain light bulbs that hung off cables that spanned from street light to street light, making barely visible the many stands and attractions that filled the squares around them.

Here, the layout of how everything was arranged and built was completely different. And in the distance, there was no wall, just a giant, brightly glowing tent.

Broad and tall bears in different colours towered over the crowds of people. They were dressed in plaid shirts and jeans with matching suspenders, held together with the same kind of sewn-on buttons that also made up an eye of one of them here and there.

One of them stopped the overeager jester right where he stood and two others came closer as well. They were so big, they still towered over Jandsome's and Janice's height. "You guys are new here!" He spoke with a deep, grumbling voice, and the other two readied their mallets while he went on. "You're not gonna cause any trouble down here, are you?"

"I'm surprised there is so little trouble down here at all."

The bear that addressed them laughed at Berdly's retort. "We'd like to keep it that way. Welcome to the carnival. We allow anyone to enter here, but keep it civil or we will MAKE you civil." His two friends slammed the upper handles of their hammers onto their right hands. A signal that they were ready to smash them to bits if they heed his warning.

"If you want to do any fighting, you either keep it in the upper levels, or you take it to the circus. The arena can always use new blood." After that, all three of them left them alone again, each returning to his post, spread apart within both squares.

Them backing off made way for Kris and the others seeing the whole carnival, with all its shooting stands, carousels, go-carts, a slow train with tracks leading straight through the visitor's area, and with people of all shapes and sizes wandering through the dark. They had to move very slowly not to bump into the people that passed them in various directions.

They wound up keeping to the left side, as the centre with all the stands dedicated to selling all kinds of curious and not so curious wares, was a lot more difficult to move through. The barely penetrable mass of people was filled not just with bears, citizens and brawlers, but all kinds of people.

Some human, some walking constructs of multi-coloured bars, some large dinosaurs, one was just a golem made of countless tiny creatures that were just a face with arms and legs. Most of which were missing something, like an arm or an eye. Rejects that missed bodyparts. Of course they would wind up forming a circus. Berdly didn't say a word about it, but he recognized them from toys from long, long ago. Toys he tossed into the first of the two toy boxes long before all the others. Of course they were at the bottom level of the inner city. Citizens, brawlers, they were buried under everything that came after them.

And even here, in light of the many people and the intimidating bears, who's threat hung over them the whole time, they only moved forward very slowly. Janice led Pluma by the hand, merely following the others and mostly looking down. "Now, now."

Jandsome tapped in front of her, lowered himself to catch her gaze and then rose back up. "Why so glum? This is a place for amusement. Look here!" He gestured to the others to stop and walked up to a stand. It was a simple stand, with juggling balls like his own lined up to be thrown at tin cans. "Excuse me, good sir." He placed a few paper bills on the counter and the man on the other side quickly understood and made way for him.

With three perfectly aimed shots, he won a plush parrot, which he presented to Janice with a graceful kneel, who passed it right onto the little girl she was leading along. The smell of burnt coal filled the air, and all you could hear over the voices that drowned out almost everything that wasn't nigh-screaming, was the sound of accordions and one piano, up on a stage with a sound system broadcasting his song.

Once past the most crowded area, they went back to the middle, past a little bench set up by two more nurses with a stretcher ready for who might need one next, onto the sandy path that led into the wide open entrance to the tent, with bears standing guard on each side. Kris went ahead and asked one of the bears for the way. "Hello. We'd like to talk to the clown."

The burly man didn't so much as budge and kept his guard up in case anyone around got any funny ideas, but even if he refused to look at the small visitor, he did answer. "Ring's on the left, stairs to the seats on the right. Clown's in the ring." It appeared that all of them were bears of little words. Ahead of them, the tent had a slightly curved wall, giving you only left and right as possibly options for paths to take from there. It was as noisy here as it was outside. And visitors were walking back and forth, but they only went to the right.

From above, the drawn-out notes of a horn and an organ overshadowed the music from outside, and trumpets and drums accompanied them. Most of all this seemed perfectly fitting for a circus. The only thing that made Kris a little uneasy was the fact that right on the path to the left, there was a light. Careful and heavily concerned, he touched it. The last few lights came just before the Roserus, just before heading to the airport where they were sent to crash into the sea, on an island with no escape, and in front of a police station in a city where the police were hunted and forbidden from doing anything short of breathing. Every light was preceded by some deadly danger.

"Uh, Berdly..." Before he could start, the ground shook, under the trampling of many, very strong legs and the sounds of a terrified elephant rushing straight past the other side of the plane that separated this place from the ring. When he walked back to his much less shaken-up classmate, he could have sworn he could hear explosions in the ring. What was happening in there? "...Berdly could you tell me a little more about this 'clown', this all seems a bit dangerous."

Berdly avoided looking at Kris. Not that someone like Kris would take note of this or see it as a sign. "You know, I don't know so much about him either." He had to stick to what the infopage had told him. If he told him anything he knew from Pilot, that would have come with risks of being found out. "All I know is that he's omnipotent and took over this circus."

And that this entire exercise was just stalling for time so either him and Kris could make it to the fountain to seal it, or so Pilot could pull himself together, the latter of which was why he shot a glare at the jester that was watching them on their way further down the path. After getting a few steps closer to where the opening to the ring was, most of the rumble inside stopped. Then, one strong thud was followed up by the crowd above cheering all around.

"There goes another contestant!", a presumed director shouted through a microphone. "Now if the nurses would please see to the poor man's health." Then they got past the plane and saw the interior of the ring. It was a normal cylindrical circus ring as you expected it, except that the dirt was littered with puddles of dried-up blood, some of which presumably came from a ten foot tall shark who had collapsed onto the ground.

He had deep wounds everywhere, one in the shape of a curved cone, straight through his back, as if he had been impaled by a horn and his right arm was twisted backwards in such a way that it was impossible to argue that it wasn't broken. "Once more, the champion goes unmatched, are they big, are they small, are they crazy, do they come solo or in numbers, ladies, gentlemen please, another round of applause for the man of the hour! The one that can do anything! A round of applause for: Jevil the Clown!"

At the mere mention of the name, the human and the prince shrugged together and took a clear step back from the entrance, all while the crowd screamed with newfound strength.

Out of the air far above the actual arena, a man in red swung himself off of the trapezes that hung down and onto the body of his latest victim. He was small. Even smaller than the teenagers and visibly so. He sported a suit that came with flower patterns in all colours of the rainbow, all at once, the main parts of which were red.

His curly hair was styled in a flawless, deep red bulbous haircut and his face was painted over white with black stars over his eyes, red paint around his lips and a dark red clown nose sticking onto the middle of his face. He had much too large shoes, one green, one yellow, and some of his yellow teeth peeked out of his open smile. The only thing that didn't match the bright rainbow that made up the rest of his costume, was the tail, curled up to form his signature 'J'.

"Nope." By the time Berdly had gotten a good look at the clown and noticed that Kris and Ralsei were gone, they were already almost at the exit, so he ran after them and Jandsome knew better than to enter the arena as well.

Only Janice took a step forward. The clown adjusted the miniature sunflower that hung out of his jacket pocket and hopped off his last challenger so the soon arriving nurses could begin to heave the big guy onto something to help carry him out of here. "And before the previous one is even out, we have a new challenge - " The circus director choked for a second when he saw who it was. "Ja-Ja...please give them a minute, ladies and gentlemen."

"GREETINGS, OLD FRIEND." Jevil smiled right at Jandsome, who followed right behind Janice and Pluma. "WHAT LEADS A KINDRED SPIRIT LIKE YOURSELF BACK INTO MY CIRCLES?"

Before the jester could answer, Janice stepped closer once again. "We're looking for Pilot!" She presented a picture of herself and him pulled right from her wallet. "My friend here told me you knew where to find him." The jester took a step back and to the side to make sure neither of the other two were looking and began to shake his head when exchanging looks with the little creature. "Have you ever seen this man?"

Jevil's whole body shook with his uncontrollable snickers. "WHY, MY FRIEND. THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN! I COULD NOT BRING YOU ANY CLOSER TO WHOM YOU SEEK, IF I WANTED TO."

Jandsome could practically feel the hope vanishing from her, just from how her shoulders dropped and the angle of her head dropped ever so slightly. "I understand. You won't help me, will you? This was a mistake." She turned around and began to storm back out of the arena. The nurses were only coming in right now, but everyone could see they would need to request for more help if they wanted to get someone as big as this shark out of here.

She paced back outside and the jester tapped ahead of her and tried to stop her. Once she was out of the arena for certain, he stopped backing off to make way for her. "Now, now. No need to rush things so much." She was seriously distressed, but this didn't help his willingness to come forward either, instead, he grabbed her by the wrist and made sure their eyes met. "Please, one moment of peace."

She stopped moving and struggling and indulged him, even if only for a second. "Let the lightners talk to him. They have a habit of solving things in strange ways. Maybe they can find out more." Now pretty cross, she wrestled herself free of his grip and began to walk back outside to follow the teenagers.

"Kris?" When Kris and Ralsei marched right outside, Berdly ran after them. "Kris come back!" He knew Kris was weird, but his prince friend was marching off with him. "Hey!" He didn't catch up until they were already back outside. "What's gotten into you two?"

"We're not doing this, Berdly." Kris stopped and was facing him straight on. He wasn't being weird absent Kris, this was something different.

"What is wrong with you? Let's just go talk to the guy."

"You said we'll visit a clown. You didn't say we'll visit Jevil."

"So what if that's his name, huh?"

Ralsei poked the sleeve of his jacket with one claw to draw his attention. "You don't understand, we know Jevil from somewhere else."

Kris pointed at him. "Wait, we even told you about that part. Remember the part about the guy who went crazy and started killing people because he thinks everything is a game? The one that has all the symbols for attacks and where us surviving was a miracle? That's him. Jevil is the crazy guy."

"Wait, so you're seriously telling me that's the same Jevil from your story?"

They both nodded very insistently. "If this is the same Ralsei, that's the same Jevil!"

"How? I thought you - wait, look." Berdly had to take a step back and strike out for a bit. "If this Jevil is the same one you know, wouldn't hat mean he's a darkner from the abandoned classroom?"

"Yes?"

"Well if the people you ran into there were all kinds of playing cards, I guess that makes him the joker. But why is he here? How is he here? How is a joker card from the abandoned classroom in a toy box in my room?" The human and the prince could only shrug. None of them had an answer. "Did you bring him here?"

"Nope. Didn't bring anything from that room with me except the horns. You were there anyway."

"Yes, but I thought maybe you...yeah I guess if you did bring him here after all, why deny it? Still, even so how IS he here, exactly?"

"If I may interject." By now, Jandsome and Janice had caught up, and the jester stepped in-between the heated youngsters. "Maybe for the time being, it is best not to focus on how he is here, and more on the fact that he is."

"What are you implying?"

Jandsome stepped back and swung his arms around to present Janice. "The pretty lady right here has already tried her luck to find out the whereabouts of her lost friend, with little to show. But perhaps you lightners have more luck in this regard?"

Berdly faced Kris, with the movable corners of his beak drawn into as much of a frown as was possible for him and snorted through the nostrils in his beak loud enough for Kris to notice. "So?"

The human just wouldn't stop staring at him. "If we're visiting Jevil, we're not doing it just like that. I'm not buying that he isn't turning this into a fight. We have to prepare properly."

"What?" Berdly raised his hands. "What do you suggest?"

He didn't like how a faint smile crept up the human's face. "Well..." Berdly would soon come to regret asking Kris for suggestions, as what Kris had in store for him, was to turn out to be more effort than Berdly was originally willing to agree to.


	9. Don't Jam with the Jevil

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 09

Don't Jam with the Jevil

* * *

Susie told this mysterious black goat in white everything about her journey through the Card Kingdom. Not far into it, he began asking her to add to each point she remembered, what they all made her think and feel. And she had to admit, it felt relieving sharing all of it. How she really enjoyed unloading on those darkners in the beginning, how she had fun joining Lancer's side and coming up with all kinds of little plays and gimmicks to try and stop or at least startle Kris and Ralsei.

And the ways they reacted each time. Ralsei with so much played-up surprise, she felt a bit insulted and Kris with barely anything at all. Each time she tried surprising him only caused a barely noticeable stir. She missed out on no opportunity to rail against Kris for not dignifying her and Lancer's little plans and ideas.

They put so much effort in the little play to put up Lancer as an unwitting stranger. And he barely reacted to that either. He played along, but she had been looking forward to seeing a terrified look on his face, and there was none.

Then again, when did he ever really make a face? He was the freak that just stayed away from everyone most of the time. Except that one time just before they went to the supply closet. At least then, for once, he dignified her with an actual reaction. Not that he didn't interact with her after that.

He and Ralsei were both freaks, but they had their own ways of doing so. Always asking her to join them on their stupid little adventure. Telling her to stop swinging her axe at people. Outright asking her to flirt with strangers. At least he wasn't asking her to flirt with him.

It was different. All of it was different from being back home. Even before, at school, at home, even when doing some more fun things that others didn't like her doing, there was a reason why she lost her cool a little bit and was almost jumpy around the others earlier today. Back when she was convinced she could just open up the door to that closet and land in the same magical land as before.

Everything out there was so...dull. So uninteresting. Even if she struck and carved the paint off of a wall, went to places and made the staff's belongings disappear or even that one time she grabbed the opportunity when a kid was left alone with their toy to throw their toy into the nearest pond and run away, when she woke up the next day, she would in the same bed in the same apartment building in the same town.

There was no point to listening to anything anyone said, because everything was the same no matter what she did. It didn't matter. Being in a whimsical place where fighting was normal, you took people head-on and every new area had new strange things to discover, it was the first time in years that she was actually really excited about something.

"Hm..." As time went on, Luxon had stopped announcing everything he noted down, but now, after she was just telling him everything for a long time, he spoke up. "I think I have a good picture of everything that happened. But now, let's emphasize the inner workings. If you had to summarize what exactly about the dark world you like so much that makes you want to go there, what would that be?"

All those little moments. Kris and Ralsei being surprised when she just switched sides, Kris and Ralsei running into her in the maze, Kris and Ralsei trying so hard to inspire her to join their stupid little group of 'heroes', Kris warning the enemy when she was about to chop them to bits, Kris trying to order her around and her ignoring it, Kris actually giving her commands towards the end.

Kris leading her and Ralsei by the hand to drag them out of many of that noisy Jevil's attacks. That moment when Ralsei surprised her by revealing his weirdly familiar face. Kris jumping in the way when King had her in a bad spot and was about to finish her off. Overall, if she had to narrow down what she wanted out of the dark world, was this feeling. Feeling invincible.

Having someone she could really trust with her life. In the end, safety. In a single world, in the dark world, she felt safe. In a way she never did in the light world. And her conclusion raised some eyebrows from her imaginary psychiatrist. He just shook his head in disbelief. "What a tremendously silly notion."

She was caught a little by surprise there. "What? Why?"

"You just described travelling through a country where everyone save for a handful of people, most of which you describe as 'freaks' or 'weirdos', is out to kill you. Is anyone out to kill you in the light world?"

This question by itself made her feel weird. She felt like she was constricted. Like she was pressed together from all sides. She looked down on the floor. "No- no. I mean sometimes I think everyone is hoping something like that happens. But no. No-one's out to kill me in the light world."

"Then why is it that you feel safe when you're in the dark world, and not when you're back home?"

She just wound up staring at the floor. Not knowing what to say. While she continued to stare, her host gave his phone a quick look. "Hm, interesting." The clipboard and pen dispersed into the same black clouds they appeared from and he pushed himself up from his seat to get up. "I'd say we're at the end of our time for today. We've already gotten one clear step closer to why you're here."

Almost dancing along his way, the black boss monster tapped back to the entrance door. Susie had to close her eyes and sigh, before she had it in her to get back up. She followed him through the corridor, but throughout the entire time of following the beaming, fancy-dressed man to a golden elevator at the side of a stairwell, the question he posed was stuck in her mind. Every time the guy shot her a grin, she glared back at him.

All walls inside the elevator that weren't the exit or the wall with the control panel attached to it, were mirrors. Once the doors were closed and the elevator moved upwards, the goat was surprised to still see her be upset. "Oh come on, cheer up." He took a step back and summoned a cane to lean onto with one hand.

"I have good news for you. A few interesting things are happening out there. And I might have an interesting deal for you. You get to have everything you want. A magical dark world adventure in an all-new dark realm, with Kris and Ralsei at your side. What do you say? Do we have a deal?" He grinned, leaned forward, pulled the white glove off his hand to reveal his black paw with pink pawpads and extended it her way. "Just shake my hand, and the deal is sealed."

She stood in place, looking up and down between this man's smiling face and his hand. "Wait, you serious?"

"Of course. But even if I weren't, even if I was lying, would it matter? Is this a dream, is this the dark world? No matter what I say, I could be lying. This could be the dark world and I merely told you it was a dream. It could be a dream and I'm a figment of your imagination, telling you I'm a real person in the dark world. Then again, we are all clay to be shaped by you lightners through your hands and your minds. Is there much of a difference between the dark world and a dream?"

She took another step back and readied her axe. "Aha! So this is the dark world!"

Not the faintest bit of his grin vanished. "And yet you woke up here upon falling asleep. It should be a dream, shouldn't it? I should be a figment of your imagination. Then again, what are we to you, if not figments of your imagination, given form within a world of your dreams? In the end, all you can do, is stop asking yourself these questions, as it all blurs together when you think about it." She kept her battle stance, but she also kept staring at this hand.

She really felt like accepting this deal. Could he give her what he promised? If it was just a dream, what was there to worry about? But then, what if it wasn't? Then it occurred to her, why she had a bad feeling about this. "Wait a minute, where's the catch? What are you getting out of this? A deal's got two sides, right?"

A wide, glowing grin formed on his face. "Clever girl." He took his hand back and stood upright again. "Yes. It always comes at a price. And save for exceptions at my leisure, I never tell anyone what the price is, until I come to collect. It depends. Are you willing to take that risk? Are you willing to risk any price as long as you get your little adventure with your two friends?"

The way he said this only emboldened her distrust in him. After a few moments, he raised his hand and waved her way with all of his hand, down to his wrist. "Oh come on, I was just tempting you. Feeling out how easy you are to goad into making a mistake. Little piece of advice: Never accept a deal if you don't know what price you're going to pay. Especially not with me. Because it will never be something you like."

With a rumble, the elevator stopped and the golden doors slid open. It led into something akin to a reception. With a counter, a comfortable tiled floor with carpets that extended all the way into he corridors to the sides and the staircase. The yellow lights doused the beige walls in a comfortable glow. But this reception wasn't where they were headed. Dr. Luxon led her further, through a golden door, out into a much more noisy indoor balcony that hung over a larger area below.

"What is this place?" Susie went to the edge of it and leaned over the railing. They were in a huge hall. To the left was an uneven arrangement of trumpeters, saxophonists, bassists, an entire orchestra of musicians. On the stage, a man in his thirties surrounded by female dancers was singing a song similar to the ones playing on the radio in the hotel. In the middle, the bright, well-lit hall was full of white, round tables.

Monsters of all kinds from dogs, to birds, to cats to hoofed mammals, sat at the tables, and more Monsters walked back and forth between the tables and an area below that Susie couldn't see.

She barely noticed when Mr. Luxon had followed her and gazed down with her. "Look at their faces. So many of us, you lightners create in your own image. They look absolutely beautiful, do they not? Downright magnificent." He turned her way, and every time she made a slight move back, he followed her.

"I was once beautiful too, you know. Now, I must tell you, I have enough of an understanding on how the light world works, to know you in particular, are not to blame. I don't hold this against you. Nonetheless. Not long after my creation." His gaze grew more and more sinister. The inner corners of those glowing eyes shifted further and further down.

Then, still pursuing her, he spun around himself in one swing and pulled his top hat off. Within the same motion, he surged right towards her face with something that replaced his face that was outright disturbing and impossible to describe in an apt and expedient way.

It was as though bits and pieces of his white face were torn and stretched far out, turned around in corners, only to tear right through his face again. "This is what you did to me! Why did you do this to me, Susan? Why did you ruin my face!" The shock clamped down on all of her so much, she physically shrugged together and found herself out of breath, in complete darkness. In panic, she reached around left and right, but as she did, gradually, she began to realize what she felt was the fabric of her bed.

In time, she settled down and sighed her last lingering worries away. It was just a bad dream.

* * *

They wandered past all the stands on the carnival in search for something, and here and there, they even found what he was looking for. Equipment. Kris wasn't willing to agree to visit Jevil under any circumstances, unless they were at least as well-equipped as they could be. And for that, they needed special equipment for adventurers. Whether or not it was enchanted in some way, although, it probably was, here and there, what Kris was looking for caught his eye.

One such piece of equipment, was a stetson hat to replace Berdly's bowler, that Kris and Ralsei insisted improved his defenses, as did the two slabs in matching colours that they brought and stuck to his jacket. It also added coolness, which apparently improved his ability to taunt his enemies.

After the stetson though, their funds were mostly drained. This kind of particular equipment was expensive. After that they actually made their entire group of six march back up to other levels of the inner city and purposefully track down, pursue and attack brawlers to pacify them, loot them, bring them to police stations and collect their bounties. Grinding, as Ralsei called it.

And after a lot of grinding, they had more ammunition than Ralsei could ever need, and more than enough money on hand to buy whatever Kris insisted they got first. The equipment they wound up buying were a black leather shoulderpiece for Kris to put on his unprotected shoulder, over his cape, a pair of white silk gloves for Ralsei that made his touches more delicate, and lastly, a new sword for Kris.

A bright yellow one with a round tip to the lower end of its grip, that had a red, five-point star engraved to it. A Baphyblade as the merchant called it.

With all this, it was finally time. They were ready. Ready as they could be. Kris still had a small fortune left, but they didn't find anything really good anymore. The closer they got to the big circus tent, the more hesitant Kris and Ralsei were to get any closer. Eventually, Berdly just grabbed Kris by the arm. "Don't be so scared. Maybe he won't attack us and we can just talk to him." Kris wasn't so optimistic.

When passing inside, with the crowd already eagerly waiting and musicians rushing in and out, he walked off to the side and touched the light. The organ didn't stop playing and the continuous, and slowly intensifying beat of the drums spoke tales of the audience's impatient bloodthirst. "Hey! What's keeping you?" When he ventured ahead, Berdly noticed that Jandsome was staying behind with Janice and Pluma, with quite some distance. "You not coming?"

"We already tried. And my tricks won't work on him if he wants a fight." Even so, easy enough, Berdly thought to himself. They had some vague semblance of a plan. All he had to do now, was to ask Jevil where pilot was, Jevil would either refuse to say or spill the beans in front of Kris and Ralsei, and then they would back off and this whole mess would finally start to unwind itself so they could focus on sealing the fountain and going home. No battle necessary.

Slowly, they stepped into the brightly lit interior the light brown dirt that covered the ground was littered with spatters of blood. And on the ground, the little man stood with his bright red hair cut in a bulbous shape. Dressed in his primarily red rainbow suit.

Smiling with that painted on face and raising an arm either to greet old friends, or to present his latest victims to his audience. "NOW WHAT IS THIS? CURIOUS, CURIOUS. DO I SEE A FEW FAMILIAR FACES? HAVE YOU COME FOR ANOTHER GAME?"

Kris pushed himself past Berdly. "What are you doing here?"

He snickered. "I RESTED, HIDDEN IN THE SHADOW OF ONE OLD FRIEND, WHEN ANOTHER WOKE ME, AND TOLD ME OF MORE ENJOYMENT TO BE FOUND HERE."

"Yes but, how did you get here?"

The corners of the clown's bright-red mouth rose, as did the painted-on green eyebrows. "HOW DID YOU?" What was that even supposed to mean?

Kris' questions weren't going anywhere, Berdly pushed him aside. "Wait, you!" Jevil slightly tilted his head at this new face. Everything was in place for Berdly. He had all the witnesses he needed. "You talked to Pilot! I know for a fact that you did! Where do we find him?"

"NOW THIS IS ONE QUESTION THAT IS NOT IN NEED OF ANSWERING. NOT FOR YOU. NOT FOR ANYONE HERE. LIKE I SAID TO YOUR FRIENDS. THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN. BUT SHEESH, ALL THESE QUESTIONS ARE SUCH A STRAIN ON THE MIND. WHAT WE NEED IS SOME EXERCISE FOR THE BODY."

When Kris and Ralsei began slowly backing off, Berdly followed them, while still talking back. "No. Please not. We don't need any exercise."

"OH." Jevil made a backwards salto to gain a little distance. "YOU DON'T, ARE YOU SURE?" When they turned around, the three of them shrugged together out of surprise, more so than him Ralsei and Kris. The entrance to the arena was walled off when they weren't looking. With solid concrete. "LET ME SEE FOR MYSELF."

In the air above all of them, an oversized, floating pistol appeared out of nowhere. It was a revolver, that came with a royal blue barrel, a black grip, and overall shared the colours of Jandsome's costume and Jevil's tail. Complete with little golden bells hanging off the barrel.

As though by invisible hands just like how it held itself in the air, the hammer on the back of the weapon, with another bell hanging off its tip pulled itself down to ready a shot, and then the trigger pulled itself. Instead of an actual shot being fired though, a pole shot out and hung out of the front end, with a lengthy white flag hanging off of it that had the word 'Bang!' written on it in the colours of the pistol.

At once, Kris screamed in Berdly's ear. "Move!", jumped to the side and dragged Berdly with him. When he pushed the human's arm away and turned around, he began to understand why. The ground where they had just stood was rising and bloating up as if it was a balloon being filled with air, and then blew up with a loud explosion, the force of which he could even feel after dodging it.

He got up as fast as he could. This guy was every bit as crazy as Kris and Ralsei had said. "Hey!" He shouted at him. "Do you want me to just shoot you?" He pulled out his guns to show he was serious.

The clown, bouncing up and down by leveraging the front ends of his oversized shoes, only laughed as always. "OH, THIS PIDGEON THINKS HE CAN SWIM WITH THE SHARKS? INTERESTING. BE MY GUEST. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!" After Jevil almost killed all of them, Berdly was happy to oblige and just began firing away, only to realize after a mere second, that Jevil was already gone. "OH. LOOKS LIKE I'M HERE. NOW."

The clown pulled his mouth open with both hands to shoot them a grimace with his unnaturally long tongue stretched out and those spiky, yellow teeth peeking out as well. But while the bird turned around to look at him, he was pulled aside by his two peers, because two bright, successive white 'diamond' symbols shot his way. The had Kris and Ralsei to thank for not getting hit by them.

He shot him again. "OH, AND NOW I'M OVER HERE." again Jevil was gone, he was pulled aside, and realized the clown was somewhere else and had fired two more diamonds their way. He tried to shoot Jevil and was pulled aside a few more times before he began to get the idea and dodge the incoming counter-attacks on his own. "OH, MISSED AGAIN!"

After a whole wave of these attacks, they could catch their breaths, as Jevil had calmed down and was just standing there, spreading one arm and bowing to the cheering public above. There had been so many of these projectiles, Berdly was surprised that they managed to not get hit a single time. "Phew, so much for this."

Kris was a lot more collected than he remembered him when they entered the tent. "Good. We dodged all of them. We'd be in trouble if not. He dodged all your shots before, maybe he'll let us hit him now that it's our turn."

Ralsei pulled him back when he was about to take a step forward and give commands. "I don't think it works that way any more. We have to come up with something else."

"Berdly. You said your Smugshot shoots homing bullets, right?"

This earned the two a very annoyed look from Kris' classmate. "We're not calling it the Smugshot."

"Right, just take aim then. So If they're really homing, they'd hit him no matter what, right?"

He wasn't sure why Kris was expecting the kind of certainty he appeared to be asking for, so Berdly just shrugged. "Yes. I assume as much."

"Here's what we do. First, Berdly, you fire a smugshot right at him, make sure it does work. Ralsei, you wait at first. The bullets will chase him, and when they hit, he'll be startled for a moment. That's when you hit him with everything you have. So, Berdly, ready?" He confirmed. "Ralsei, you ready?"

The sound of releasing the now slightly raised rifle, was loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Locked and loaded."

"Okay. And..." He stopped for a moment. "Berdly. If he attacks us with weird stuff after all this, just follow my lead, okay?" Berdly stared at him with a very annoyed expression. Those narrowed eyes had to have been obvious enough to get his disapproval across, even for Kris. "Come on. We got this far, just trust me, okay?" He took a deep breath, and then just nodded.

Kris was right. They did get this far. All those shots he helped Berdly dodge before, not to mention all the fights with brawlers, he blamed Kris for their early hiccups, but at this point, had earned another chance. Once he was sure that his classmate was going to follow his lead, Kris turned around and faced the clown. "So. Let's go." Now he stepped forward swung his arm forward to point straight at the clown and shout: "Berdly! Take aim!"

As commanded, he raised both his pistols, aimed calmly at the disguised jester and watched the glowing symbols form at him. When the larger, shrinking circle passed the smaller one, he pulled the triggers and was again forced back slightly by the stronger recoil. And just as Kris had figured, and just as it had happened before, Jevil vanished and the bullets changed course mid-flight, straight past them and onto a different corner, where they pierced right through his clothes and onto him.

When they struck, they tickled a sound of surprise out of the startled clown. "Ralsei, now!" The prince grabbed the opportunity, aimed right at his now stumbling target, pressed the back of his weapon against his shoulder and pulled and held the trigger.

An ear-shattering barrage shot right at Jevil and pierced entire patterns of holes into him. The clown's head popped out of his body like a jack-in-the-box. He bled from the other side, at least for a moment. "WHAT IS THIS! AT LAST SOMEONE WHO CAN FOLLOW UP ON MY PLAYS." He was as unimpressed as he sounded.

Within seconds, his head lodged itself back in place and he recovered right before their eyes. His torn, rainbow-coloured suit restored itself until it was flawless again as well. "AT LAST, WHAT FUN. LET'S CELEBRATE!" With another swing of the clown's arm, a several metre wide bowl just appeared to grow out of the ground in the very middle of the arena. Inside, a bright pink mass began to stir. "A SWIRLING SWEETNESS, A SIN TO YOUR TEETH FOR SINNERS IN ALL SIZES!"

Again, the crowd cheered and clapped in anticipation of something they probably already knew from past battles. The stirring liquid mass began to harden, and then two rows of strands of bright pink cotton candy, eight on each of them grew out of the bowl. They almost reached the width of one of the three heroes, and extended themselves to the outer ends of the arena.

"Arms!" Kris rushed between Ralsei and Berdly and presented to them his stretched out elbows, and they both quickly understood that he meant to hook their arms into his. Jevil was all about entertainment, so of course the best way to dodge his attacks, would resemble a dance. Once the strands of cotton candy were at their full length, and for some reason didn't seem to fall down in spite of nothing holding them up.

A second later, it turned out that something was doing so after all. From within each strand, a widening metal bar made itself apparent that ran through the middle of each one and held it together. And not only was it itself growing wider, very painful-looking metal spikes shot out of all ends of it, which peered visibly out of the cotton and these floating constructions, still coming out of the bowl but arranging themselves to take turns in being high and low at each radius from the centre, began to spin. Too fast to just roll along. If those things touched any of them, it would be extremely painful.

Kris guided the three of them to face one of the bent rods spinning around their inner axis. At least they weren't moving around too erratically, they were obviously divided in small segments, each one of which was spinning individually.

Then, they began to move, the bowl, and with it, all the cylindrical segments that had grown out of it, began to turn around the bowl and within mere moments, one of said curved rods closed right in on them, with the segments that closed in on them at a little less than their knee's height. "Jump!" Kris shouted, before leading them closer to it.

He kneeled ever so slightly to give them a clearly recognizable motion that they could move roughly in sync with, and then all three of them stepped or jumped over the deadly cotton trap unscathed. "Duck!" After this, they lowered themselves and began to crouch, passing right under the next rod that had chosen its path at their standing height at the distance to the centre they were at.

Then shortly after passing them, Kris stood upright and by doing so, got them to do the same. "Jump!" He approached the next one, which was again at below-knee's length and they all managed to step or jump over it. "Duck!, jump! Duck, jump!" It was a slightly rough start, but Berdly and Ralsei soon got the hang of following the strict back-and-forth between jumping over the low segments and ducking under the high ones, over and over until they made a full circle.

After that, to their relief, it stopped. The spikes retracted themselves, the cotton-wrapped cylinders that made up the rods shrank back down to actual curved rods and with it, the pink delicacy seemed a lot less dangerous.

"TAKE IT! TAKE IT ALL!" Now that it wasn't dangerous any more, a whole swarm of handy white plastic sticks appeared and floated in the air, arranged along the fluffy mass. With nothing visible causing it, the stuffy goodness wrapped itself off of the floating metal bars and onto all of the plastic sticks, until each one had a sizable amount of it wrapped around it.

After that, they all floated further and further up, and shot in all directions, spreading themselves across all of the audience's seats. Of course the audience loved the questionably clean, but free sweets.

At last, they could let go for a moment. And once they gathered themselves, Kris reminded them. "All right. We hit him. We're doing the exact same thing again. Let's go. Berdly! Take aim!" They repeated what they did before, watched the bullets turn course when Jevil vanished, and once he was startled from getting hit, the prince emptied his magazine on him.

It worked, again. But again, he recovered within seconds, before shaking his head. "AMAZING! NOW, LET'S TAKE A LITTLE TOUR!"

For a moment, Berdly lost balance, felt something pull at various places, then he noticed he was back right next to Kris and Ralsei, with the human in the middle. The three of them were sitting on unicycles and thin white ropes thoroughly tied their legs to them. All three of which were attached to one another side by side.

And they were mid motion and had to quickly switch to pedaling to not fall over. "Don't look back." the human said, as they slowly made their way to the other side of the arena. "I said don't look back!" Berdly didn't listen. He snuck a glance to the back and shrugged together when he saw why he was told not to look. Right behind them, a hysterically laughing clown with his tongue all out was sitting in a tiny car.

He was chasing them very, very slowly, but the car itself wasn't the problem, rather the cranes with axes attached to their ends that were reaching out and swiping their blades through the front of the clown car. All three of them did their best not to lose balance and to pedal in sync and move away from the self-swinging weaponry.

Eventually though, trouble was on the way, when they got closer to a corner. "Only Ralsei, stop!" Kris and Berdly kept pedaling, so that the unusual vehicle they were given was mostly staying in place while taking a turn right. "Both forward."

Once the prince resumed pedaling with the others though, the three of them moved again, now in a direction that wasn't met with a soon dead end, and of course, their pursuer took that curve eventually as well. "Ralsei stop. Both Forward. Ralsei Stop. Both Forward."

They did this a few more times, until with a similar momentary loss of balance, the unicycles disappeared, as did the rope that tied them to them and the vehicle that pursued them. Ralsei fell on the ground as a result of it and was happy to see Kris help him up.

"What now?"

"Same thing again. We have to pull through this."

"But we're not dealing any damage!"

"We are, kind of. It worked that way last time."

The bird sighed. "If you say so."

Once Ralsei was done loading a new magazine, they redid their routine. Berdly taking aim, Jevil dodging, only to get hit anyway, and Ralsei unloading on him. And again, it accomplished nothing. It only made him laugh and dangle that sprung-out head of his. And the moment that wore off, he jumped up and announced to the suddenly quiet audience: "CAN OUR VISITORS DODGE A FEW WARNING SHOTS? METAMORPHOSIS!"

He shrank and vanished, and in his place, three revolvers similar to the one from before appeared, each one targeting one of the three.

Kris had only one command to shout in response: "Run!" Each one began running for their life. Occasionally stumbling over a patch of earth that was bloating up a little closer or further than they liked. Explosion after explosion, and towards the end, they only just got away each time. Then, in the end, one explosion was a little too far ahead, and Berdly ran right into it. It cut his jacket open and the pain, while the strongest in his chest where it hit, arched its way everywhere.

Good thing this was it, and the other two could quickly run his way and patch him up. The crowd groaned with disappointment over the three taking their first hit. Jevil had appeared again, about as far away as he had started. "We can't let up. Berdly! Take aim!"

And again with the same routine. Except that instead of just occasionally bowing to the viewing public, upon recovering from Ralsei's latest barrage, he began bouncing and bouncing and not just in place, but in a wide circle, high up to talk to the people watching a little more closely. "RESOURCEFUL! SHALL WE TRY OUR FRIENDS A LITTLE MORE?" The crowd cheered. "MAYBE SEND THEM ON A LITTLE SAFARI."

The crowd went wild with excitement. With three sideways jumps, he swung his arm and even though he was nowhere near close enough to touch them, Kris, Berdly and Ralsei were all launched into one corner of the arena. A twenty-foot-tall circular metal fence shot out of the ground and separated them from the inner part of the area. Then the ground beneath them trembled. It shook under a continuous force none of them could see.

With a frantic stare in what Berdly could catch in his eyes, his classmate grabbed him and Ralsei by the wrist and began running and pulling them along in one direction at a speed that spoke of fear. Soon later, the source of the trampling manifested out of thin air, not too far behind them in the fenced ring they were stuck in.

A huge stampede of all sorts of gazelles, buffaloes, lions, elephants, even with a few crocodiles waddling behind them as fast as they could. Feral creatures from parts of the world so savage, even the humans from there killed and ate each other. The roars coming from behind only spurred them on all the more.

Seeing as they weren't particularly tall, the animals closed in on them at an alarming rate, but the head start Kris gave them by pulling the along to run long before the animals actually appeared carried them far enough to complete a little less than a circle around the arena, after which the stampede phased back into the ground.

This time, after their routine, something changed. Berdly and Ralsei were almost knocked off their feet when the earth of the arena itself, what they thought was just part of the even ground the tent was built on, began moving. Spinning around. Jevil began jumping in place, turning in all directions, spreading one arm each time to wave at the audience. "AND NOW, AN OLD CLASSIC!"

Kris gestured for the two of them to hook into his arms again and positioned himself in a specific place of which Berdly didn't really understand why this position in particular. Then, in rings that spanned the entire area and moving inward and outward serpentines, the horses and giant ducks of a carousel appeared and floated in circles opposite to how the ground was spinning.

Each carriage had sharp blades lining its sides and was coming at them with terrifying momentum. With little room to stray away from him, the human led the other two in a continuous and very strange half-circle that was interrupted along the way to start a new one. Over and over, with the occasional touch-up here and there, they just cycled through the same smaller route more or less in place, while trying not to lose balance in sight of the constantly moving ground.

And strangely enough, it worked. The painful-looking carriages almost hit them a lot of times. But only ever almost, this disturbing, confusing route they were moving in kept them completely out of harm's way from start to finish. Before Berdly knew what to make of it, the carriages stopped. Jevil kept waving at the people above, and the people sounded like they loved his signature attack, but the carriages were gone. Except that the ground was now continuously in motion.

And to his horror, this wasn't the end of it. In fact, it was only the beginning. What followed for him and Ralsei was to brave through several cycles of repeating those same maneuvers, but with more troubles added. They had to dodge their way through the cotton candy trap, only that it was faster than before and more difficult with the ground they walked on moving in the opposite direction.

And in a later cycle, the cotton candy trap wasn't arranged in a way that let them follow a strict duck-jump pattern, they had to adapt to variations. The ground spinning the way it did also removed some of their head start when they were thrown to the edge and chased by wild animals the next time. They had to account for it when running from the explosions because running counter to the spin slowed them down and put them at risk of getting hit.

Each time he cycled through his attacks, he became harder to hit. At first he was only hopping around in place, but as time went on, the clown began to jump in random directions and towards the end of it, he bounced around at such insane speed waving at his audience, he was leaving after-images. It looked like there were four of him and Berdly had to keep aiming for the 'newest' one. He even missed here and there because of this.

Then, after a torturous gauntlet of miraculously evaded attack patterns, one more time, Kris had the two of them wind their arms around his and together, he positioned himself in a particular place pretty close to the very centre, with very little necessity to move to counteract the ground's movements. Jevil summoned a cannon, slid inside, and it shot him downwards. With an insane and impossible to follow speed, he was torpedoed down to them and bounced off the poles and the walls, almost crashing into them about a dozen times within three seconds. "This is it! Finish him!"

Then, when they repeated their routine one last time, it happened, at last it happened. When he was still recovering from one of Ralsei's last magazines, the clown sighed, pulled his head back into his shoulders and clapped. "BRAVO! BRAVO! YOUR STRENGTH AND SPEED NEVER DISAPPOINTS, LIGHTNERS. A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THE LIGHTNERS!", he shouted upwards.

And louder than ever before, the people cheered and the blurred rush of clapping hands drowned out the already loud music. With a few jumps, the clown came closer until he was within a few metres from the completely exhausted teenagers.

Still heaving heavily from running for his life from all the double-sized explosions, Kris looked up while still on his knees. "Jevil. Will you now please tell us where Pilot is?"

Jevil raised one finger, now that he was able to with yellow, five-digit gloves. "WHY FRET ABOUT A PILOT WHEN THERE ARE GREATER THREATS AHEAD?"

Between breaths, he interrupted him. "Is this - is this about the Queen?"

"THE KNIGHT WON'T REST FOR YOUR COMFORT. MUCH LESS NOW THAT THE RULES CHANGED."

"Rules?"

"WITH DIFFERENT MEDIUMS COME DIFFERENT RULES. A USURPER HAS TAKEN THE SPOTLIGHT, AND NOW THAT SHE KNOWS, SHE PLANS TO USE THIS FOR HER GAIN. THE 'QUEEN' IS NOT ALONE IN HER LITTLE GAME, AND ONCE SHE DISCOVERS THIS, SHE WILL FEAR UPHEAVAL. WITH EACH JOURNEY, THE KNIGHT'S EFFORTS TO THWART YOU WILL GROW EVER GREATER. LIGHTNERS, WILL YOU FACE - ANY - ENEMY THAT MAKES THEIR MOVE?"

He laughed. "NONETHELESS, A MISCHIEF-MISCHIEF - A CHAOS-CHAOS! LIGHTNERS, FROM WITHIN THE THREADS OF YOUR TALE! TAKE ME AND GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT!" He shrank and vanished. "METAMORPHOSIS!" And right where he did, a box appeared.

They came closer and opened it. Within it were two pistols. Revolvers in Jandsome's blue-black colours with bells in the same places as the giant ones Jevil used on them throughout their battle. Berdly took one in his hand. They were a perfect fit. "Hm..." He took both and aimed them at a random place on the ground.

A slightly different-looking reticle appeared where he was aiming them, along with the circles he expected. When he pulled the triggers though, it didn't fire homing bullets like his usual pistols did. Instead, like with Jevil's, each revolver had a flag peek out that read 'Bang!' on it, and after that, the earth where Berdly was aiming, began to bloat and then explode. It appeared that the clown had given Berdly a pair of clown pistols, like his own.

"Well...that was something." Berdly was still recovering, but still, he called after Kris and Ralsei, who were already on their way back outside. "Wait, Kris!"

They stopped and turned around to wait for him to catch up. "Look. Whenever we talked about Jevil up until just now...I didn't expect...whatever this was." Ralsei smiled patiently. Kris just stared at him. "I didn't know that...look. You know what? I'm sorry? I should have listened. I just didn't know this was what I was getting us into, okay?"

Kris continued to stare at him for a few seconds, then smiled. "Okay." 'Okay'. That was all he had to say. Then he turned around and walked outside with the prince.

Berdly walked along with them. Jandsome and Janice weren't here, at least not right behind the suddenly nonexistent concrete wall that blocked off their only way out before. "But uh, Kris. How did you even do this?"

"Do what?"

"You know...the dodging thing. It feels like a miracle that we got through this, just like you said with Susie. But it also feels like...did you know what attacks were coming somehow?"

He shrugged. "No. Intuition. I'm just good at this." Of course, that was a lie and the only reason Berdly believed it, was that he would have been less willing to believe the truth, had Kris tried to tell him about invisible lights that turned back time. In truth, they did this fight over, and over, and over, and over again. Each time, they died, he landed in the dark void he ended up in so many times on their last run-in with Jevil.

Over and over, he went through all his attacks again and again until he could dodge them all flawlessly. The very last one was particularly bad, as it was impossible to dodge, Jevil as a cannonball was just too fast to adapt. To get past this attack, he had to repeat the entire fight again and again just to try out one place to stand in, until he eventually did find one that wasn't in the clown's path.

All he could think of now though, was that it was over. The moment they were outside and saw that the two oversized humans and Berdly's sister were all right, he rushed back inside to touch the light. "Hey, Kris! You coming?"

He rushed outside, and about at the same time as him catching up, both groups met each other half-way. "Any insights?" With sharp movements in her arms and legs, Janice marched to the three younger ones and grabbed Berdly and Kris by the shoulders, her grip on each one so stiff it was painful. "Did he say anything that brought us closer to him? Please!" All three exchanged looks and eventually shook their heads at the desperate woman. "No...anything! He must have said something!"

Kris was the one that put what they were all thinking into words. "He talked about other things. Things he already talked about before Pilot left."

The prince was bummed out over their lack of results. "I'm sorry, we tried, but..."

In his usual duckwalk, the jester followed the others and stepped between both parties before the torn woman had a chance to vent her frustrations on those teenagers. "Now now, no need for despair. Perhaps he is not in this city after all. Perhaps he went home. Perhaps if you return home, he will be there waiting for you. Let us help the lightn-"

Janice pushed off the hand the jester had placed on her arm and screamed. "No!" She shot him a deadly glare. He could tell from the expression on her face that she was near tears.

"Janice..."

With a shaky voice, she stormed off for just enough distance that she could turn her back on the others. "I am not abandoning him. If there is no other way..." They followed her to better hear her, but she ignored them and stared at the ground, still leading Pluma by the hand. "If there is no other way to find out where he went, I will go ask the Dealmaker. He will know."

When she spoke that name, Jandsome shook. Whatever this was, it seriously bothered the suddenly stammering jester. "No. No, no you can't."

"I will pay any price if he can lead me back to Pilot. If there is anyone who can, it's him."

"Please, consider anything else! We will find another way."

While lowered down, he snuck closer to grab her and pull her back by the elbow gain. With an unexpected force, she ripped herself off of his grasp. "My mind's made up!" She faced them all, now indeed with tears running down her eyes. "Come with me if you must, but I am going to the Dealmaker with or without you!" With this, she stormed off again. This time without stopping.

They had no choice but to follow her. Even the three that had no idea who or what the Dealmaker was, had a bad feeling considering the jester's worries and Janice not mentioning him until she had nothing else left.


	10. Don't Deal with the Devil

.

Love in Plastic

Chapter 10

Don't Deal with the Devil

* * *

An eerie silence hung over everyone. Without a word and through moving masses of strangers, Kris, Berdly, Jandsome and Ralsei kept an eye out for the cold shoulder of the furious human woman that led Berdly's confused sister by the hand, straight through the most crowded area within the carnival back to the centre. And this silence loomed over them all the way up.

Floor after floor, they ascended the car park to the very top level of the inner city, where for once, there were no 'moons' shining down on them, just the darkness of the night sky. Berdly tried several times to talk to Jandsome in hopes of finding out more about this 'Dealmaker' they were visiting, but with no luck. Ever since Janice's outburst, he refused to say a word.

Up here, they approached the wall. Only that up here, it wasn't a wall. That entire part of the upper city was boxed in completely. Even with a helicopter, it would have been impossible to enter. The only entrance they knew of at this point, was the one they were heading to right now. They were closing in on a solid gate so large, the upper end of it almost reached the top of the metal box.

At both sides, citizens stood in black, modern combat uniforms. Each one having a cutting-edge two-handed rifle in his hands, more pistols in holsters in various places on their clothing, as well as a taser, a club, and a little radio to communicate with others. On both sides of the gate, turrets were built that immediately aimed at Janice and the others, too. And they immediately had the attention of those heavily armed guards, too.

In fact, in spite of none of them looking like they were about to attack anyone, all the armed uniforms pointed their weapons at them. None of them made an effort to fire though, until Janice was only a few metres away from the gate. That was when one man, the only one not pointing a gun at them, spoke up. "State your name and business."

"I want to speak to the Dealmaker."

The security guards exchanged looks while the one that had spoken to her grabbed his radio to repeat what she said to the person on the other end. After listening to said person, he told Janice and the others to stay put. They all did. For quite a while.

Then, in the distance, on the clean pavement behind the thickly barred and barely at all see-through gate, someone came along swinging his cane by the curved top. It was a monster, with four fingers on each hand, but not a brawler. A goat, the same kind of black goat with glowing eyes and mouth as Ralsei, except he was an adult.

The smiling stranger sported a snow-white tuxedo with light blue being the only colour he chose to complement it and with pentagrams and reversed crosses decorating his attire here and there. As soon as he was close enough to clearly see the six of them, he spread his arms. "Well if this is not a welcome sight." He slapped one of the security guards on his side of the wall with his cane. "What are you ruffians doing, keeping her out of here? Don't you see that this is Janice? THE Janice!"

He came closer to the gate and bowed. "Janice, my friend, do come in. You look downright devastated, what is wrong? Please, my apologies for this indecency." He twitched slightly. "I will make sure that those responsible for it are held to account."

The banging of pieces of metal sliding and shifting against other metal surfaces could be heard from within the wall, and slowly, the gate opened for the six of them enter a large square, with black bricks several metres wide and half a foot between them, but completely clean. No syringes or pieces of dirt or piles of dust.

"Please, come in, come in! Your friends as well. Those are your friends, am I correct?"

Janice only turned her head slightly, not nearly enough to look back at any of them. "Something of that sort. Three of them are lightners who promised to help me." She emphasized that last part and then walked further inside. "I'm not so sure if they're intent to keep it." Berdly's sister, still carried by the human-looking darkner, looked back at Kris and the others with concern.

She passed the strange man, who waited for the others to come closer. When Janice's entourage was close enough, he raised a finger. "Say, one of the lightners among you wouldn't happen to go by the name 'Kris', would he?" The 'man' in question faced the Dealmaker and came closer. "You?" He nodded. "Aha! That explains one thing. But where are my manners." He shook Kris' hand. "Luxon's my name. Samuel Luxon. But you can call me Sam, if you'd like to."

This was perhaps the best time to bring it up, now that Kris had the stranger's attention. There was something on his mind and he had better bring it up now than later. "Asriel? Is that you?"

The black goat raised one eyebrow. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Asriel."

"I'm afraid I'm not sure whether I follow."

"It's his brother." Berdly came closer and inserted himself in their conversation. "He has a big brother and you sort of sound like him." He didn't look like his brother, Kris would have recognized the facial features at once. And his mannerisms were completely different as well, but the voice was the exact same.

That only widened the stranger's smile. "Interesting. On a more timely occasion, you HAVE to tell me all about this 'Asriel'. But where are my manners." He sped a little ahead to walk backwards right in front of Janice. "It has been so long since you last came to visit me, what gives me the honor? Where is your handsome companion anyway? Isn't it your anniversary any day now? In case we don't meet then, I will say Mazel Tov to that right now."

"He's gone, Samuel." They stopped in the middle of the square. "He's just gone and I don't know where he went." The human woman of their group saying this halted everyone in their motion and nothing was said for a few moments.

That was, until the Dealmaker shot her a wink and began dancing a little half-circle with his cane. "Hm. I see. Then I presume the reason for your visit is that you are trying to find him." Janice nodded. "A pity to only come at such a sad occasion, but please, no need to fret. Even such troubles can be fixed. For a price, of course."

Berdly couldn't help but notice the common theme between the 'deals', the mans horns and the symbols. "The price is going to be thirty silver shekels, isn't it."

"Of course not." Samuel placed one hand with stretched-out fingers on his chest and shook his head. "I don't deal in 'shekels'."

"Sure you don't, Samael."

"I deal only in things that money can't buy. For everything else, I have employees. Speaking of employees, let's not waste any more time out here." He paced ahead towards a giant building that filled out the entire height of the curved, lengthy metal box that surrounded them, almost its entire width, and went on and on and on along the one road to its side.

Samuel reached around with his arm. "Welcome to my own part of the city. The true upper city. Where only the rich and famous of Canyon City live. No need to be so hesitant, my friends. Everyone who lives here has made their deals with me, and as you can attest to yourselves, they are all safe and sound right now, are they not?"

"They all made deals with you?" In the distance, people did move about, all dressed in fancy clothing. Dressed in only the finest of suits and the most brightly glittering dresses and shawls. Most of them were walking back and forth between their lengthy, expensive-looking cars all operated by chauffeurs, and the building that Janice, Samuel and the rest were approaching.

"Of course. They had to. When our new mayor began expropriating property, the real estate prices dropped to nigh-zero and I bought everything from right outside town hall all the way to the cleaners and had it walled off. The richest of the city, who wield the money all citizens work to make, rather than putting their money towards something to stop Don Gatore, took the path of least resistance. They made a deal with him, and one with me. They keep their money out of the mayor's hair, and his broader circle of spiky friends leave their businesses alone - for now. As for me, they get to live here, in the safety of my part of town, with response teams on their payroll guarding every entrance, far away from all the qualms outside. And of course not a single one of those tasteless ruffians anywhere near where they could..."

He let out a comically exaggerated gasp. "...lightners forbid - see them!"

Something about this didn't sit right with the bird. "And what do you get out of this?"

Samuel chuckled. "I can offer a person whatever they desire. And yet everyone who considers making such a deal with me, thinks twice about doing so. There is a reason for that. I never tell what the price is. Not until I come to collect. It isn't even set in stone half the time. Of course, once I do, you will quickly know what price you paid by virtue of losing it. But enough of the seriousness of business, please, enjoy yourselves."

They began to ascend set of stairs even wider than those in front of the public building on one of the squares in the outer city. With shiny, white pillars dressed in decorative bands of gold. The building itself, a colossal structure that reached all the way to the metal cover at the top, decorated with neon signs all around the windowless outer wall, depicting a range of symbols that would share themes with the different kinds of establishments Samuel would go on to say that this building contains.

"Welcome to my humble little establishment. The Dealmaker's Den. Hotel? Restaurant? Opera house? Casino? Spa? It has everything, it is whatever you want it to be."

The doors swung open and made way for a reception hall that was as big as they expected it to be from the outside size. The floor was covered in square-shaped tiles of ceramic almost as large as the tiles outside. Their colour took turns between black and gold. The pattern was broken towards the middle to make way for a giant ornate pentagram, facing the exit with a single point and from there, extending a long blue arrow that reached all the way to the central front door.

Through wide open sets of doors to the far left and the far right, they could see that the walls in the next room were as white as they were here. The light in the hall came from intricate, golden chandeliers that hung off the ceiling. From all the way on the left to all the way on the right, spun a counter with several monsters that were approached by guests, both ones that seemed to be leaving, as well as ones that just got here.

In sync with Jandsome, who mirrored his movements, the black goat slid along the floor all the way to the centre, made a pirouette and waved at the employees at the reception. "Right hand's badges for her and her entourage." With another swing, he turned to Kris and the others to bow and gesture to the doors on the right. "Indulge yourselves all you wish, drinks are on the house."

One of the people he spoke to, opened up a part of the table and went to Janice to pin a badge onto her coat with a strange symbol on it consisting of ten circles. He brought more of them to pin them onto everyone else as well. Kris had his pinned to his cape since it wouldn't fit onto metal plates that way. Behind those doors that Samuel led them through, was a hall much, much larger in all directions than the reception.

Most of it was full of tables, at which sat people with only the smoothest suits, the most extravagantly tailored dresses and the most gemstone-laden jewelry hanging off the necks of the women. Animated plastic Monsters with stuck-on twirled mustaches carried trays back and forth between the hall and one of the doors in the back. Further into the hall, was a lowered area divided into several heights.

A piano, a tuba, a bass, entire rows of saxophones and trumpets, a drum set, an entire orchestra, in fact there was twice as much of everything playing down there. Behind it was a stage. Two monsters in snow-white suits just like Samuel's stood at the microphone and sang a duet, with female dancers in provocative dresses raising their legs in a synchronous dance.

Above them, connected to the ground only through a very narrow, spiral set of stairs, hung a partial upper floor - or an indoor balcony - with railing separating it from the rest of the hall. "Please, a few spare tables for my new friends." He clapped his hands and a few staff members followed up on his orders, leaving through the same door in the back they usually came from, to later return in pairs with tables.

Janice looked down and reassured herself that she had one of those badges on, before she put down Pluma to stay with Kris, Ralsei and Berdly. She left to head to a counter that spanned the wall to the right, with endless rows bottles with all sorts of alcoholic beverages. "I need a drink." She did as she implied. At the counter, she ordered several glasses of some mixed drink Kris and Berdly wouldn't have recognized.

The jester snuck after her to take a seat right next to her. She had calmed down just a bit, and her loosening up under the effects of alcohol might have given him a chance to talk her out of this. "You should rethink your decision on this." Janice didn't dignify him with a reaction. She just stared at the bottles in the back and occasionally took a sip from her glass. "I am certain we will find a way without going to such extremes, please think of another way."

"Please, take a seat." Kris and Berdly didn't listen to much more of that conversation, as soon after that, staff arrived with their table and they were gestured to sit down by their very outgoing guest host. "Now then." Samuel rubbed his hands and leaned forward, resting his head on his hand and his elbows on the table. "Little human you must tell me more about this 'Asriel'."

Kris only gave him a blank stare. "Why? What do you want to know?"

"Everything! What does he do? What is his occupation? What does he spend his spare time with? What is his favourite colour? Leave nothing out, my curiosity for this beautiful template to my image cannot be sated."

"So are you like Ralsei?" Kris subtly pointed at his prince, who sat right next to him. "Does taking the hat off change your face?"

"This old thing?" The black goat ran his hand along the base of the white top hat on his right horn. "Indeed it does, but not long upon my creation, you lightners robbed me of my handsome face. I had rather not to unsettle my guests by showing them what was made of it. But enough about me, let's order you something to drink." He dismissively clapped his hands. "Howard?" One of the employees came along and stood straight with a piece of cloth hanging off his arm. "Would you please take my guests' orders?"

The border collie with a fake spiral mustache pulled out a little note block and a pen. Berdly shot Kris a slight grin and ordered a glass of the same drink Pilot had bought for him when he was bout to show him his real face. Ralsei soon ordered something very mild to drink as well. Kris took a little longer. "Do you have uh..."

"Anything you like."

"...how about a hot chocolate?"

"Tsk. Kris." Berdly couldn't suppress his grin and tipped his elbow against his classmate's chestplate. It wasn't like Berdly planned on drinking here, he was just being polite. Of course Kris had to be weird again, but at this point, instead of being embarrassed, Berdly found it funny.

The Dealmaker just leaned back in his chair and folded up his arms. With his glowing eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised he nodded to Howard. "You heard him. Hot chocolate it is." With this, the waiter nodded and went off to fetch them what was ordered, while Samuel went back to gazing at Kris. "But now do stop teasing me. I want to know every bit there is to know about this 'Asriel'."

Berdly humoured them and sat there occasionally pretending to sip at his drink while listening to Kris recall, until while their host fawned over what he was hearing, he began to get up. "Incredible. So he is an artist AND he seeks to attain knowledge beyond even what lightners comprehend. This man is getting more interesting by the second." When he saw Berdly standing up, he pointed towards a door way off to the side. "Uh, bathrooms are thataway."

"Thanks." He wasn't going to the bathroom, he just wanted something a little more interesting than to hear Kris AND Sam reminisce over what a great brother he had. He took a few steps in the direction Sam had pointed to, not to get to a bathroom, but to be a bit away from all the tables and give it all a good look.

Large, clean, expensively outfitted buildings, people dressed in fine clothing, a full orchestra worth of musicians, and all defenseless and yet untouched. Not even scary-looking bears like at the bottom level. Guessing by the circumstances and everything he had seen outside of here, he would have expected everyone to be on edge. He got that sense from the other visitors at the carnival. But they weren't. Why was everyone here so relaxed?

"Excuse me, good sir."

"Yes?"

Two plastic monsters, one in a smooth grey suit with a silver tie that had patterns made of of golden thread woven onto it and his presumed wife, a cockerspaniel of the same age, had come over to him with their wine glasses. "Me and dear Charlotte couldn't help but notice the most baffling choice of attire your acquaintances chose to pay us company with."

"Peculiar indeed." his wife added.

"You wouldn't mind my asking...Are you by chance here to prepare a performance? Have Janice and Mr. Luxon arranged for a new surprise play?"

He just raised an eyebrow at this suggestion. "No. I'm sorry to disappoint you. We aren't here as performers."

"No need for concern, but if I'm not imposing...why the armor and the robes? And this gentleman's attire?" He didn't gesture any particular way, but from how he was standing, it was clear he meant Jandsome, who was still sitting at the bar with Janice trying to convince her not to make the deal. Whatever this deal was.

"We're not from here. I'm not either, actually."

They both chuckled and covered their mouths slightly while doing so. "This is most certainly believable."

"I suppose this means you don't often get anyone coming here that isn't dressed for the occasion."

They both nodded at each other and at him. "True, true."

"Would you mind if I had a question of my own?"

They walked around to no longer watch the tables and the show with him, but to face him directly. "Of course."

"Everyone here's so relaxed. Aren't you the least bit worried?"

The two other guests were, for lack of a better word, perplexed. "What do you mean? Worried about what?"

"About the situation outside of this part of town?"

"What about it?"

"You know, the dust trade, the brawlers kicking people like you out of their homes and killing them, all of that?"

Both of them looked off to the side and held in what would have been loud laughter and took turns berating him with a wide smile. "What nonsense. Completely exaggerated hogwash that is. Only the uneducated think brawlers are an actual problem."

"Lazy good-for-nothings, all of them. Backward and worthless. They are out there and not in here for a reason."

"I wouldn't believe any of it if I were you."

Berdly snorted through his nostrils. "Really now?"

Then, Charlotte acted up and waved her hand out of excitement while slightly bouncing up and down. "Wait, are you one of them? Is that where you are from? Are you backwater hillbillies?" Her smile grew wider and wider, as did her husband's.

Both of their noses began pointing further and further up, as did the corners of their mouths. "Is that what you are, a hillbilly from way outback?" He began swinging his elbow about in a mocking fashion. "Howdy, fellash, mah names Dahnald Tarrington, and ahm real' miffed about thosh gersh dern brawlersh. Makesh me wanna tune mah banjo and beat mah wife who'sh alsho mah shishter!"

After this, he and his grinning wife began to inch closer and closer to Berdly with the sides of their faces practically pressed onto each other.

Then they separated and Charlotte had another brilliant epiphany. "Oh wait, wait! Maybe he's not a hillbilly, maybe he's one of those other ones, you know, the chavs."

The gentleman followed up on her suggestion and stared at Berdly again while getting in character. "Is that what you're really about? Oy mayte, me an' me moytes go'a pick our knoives ou'a the bin and stab us some broolas, innit?"

He listened to their impressions with increasingly narrow eyes, and once they were done, he slightly shook his head. "I really think you're out of touch here."

"Oh, what nonsense, what brawlers have you ever met?"

He began counting all his encounters with them on his fingers and had to cycle through both hands once. They both waved away the points he made. "You must have gotten a false first impression of them. I am sure most brawlers are perfectly nice people, those are just some particularly bad eggs you ran into. I'm sure it's not even as over-the-top as you say. After all, if they were all out to kill us like you make it sound, how is any of this possible?"

The other guest gestured to mean everything around them. "We are all perfectly fine, are we not?"

Now, Berdly was the one that started to smile. "I think that has less to do with brawlers being nice and more with that giant wall and security personnel keeping them away from you." And his grin only widened from here. "You don't believe anything you just said, do you? If you did, you wouldn't be hiding behind a wall."

He had ceased to care about showing them good tone or what they thought of him when they were accusing him of being a range of cartoon stereotypes. "You'd go out there or let them in. And yet here we are and I can't spot anyone who looks like one. Can you?"

After that, the couple just exchanged a glance and then turned back to him with very upset looks on their faces. "All right, those jokes and backward antics were amusing the first three times, but we are growing bored. Go practise the banjo or whatever it is you people do."

Without another word, they straight up walked away. He was planning on trying to keep a formal or agreeable tone with those people originally, but something about how they dismissed stuff he saw with his own eyes made him cease to care about what they thought of him. They were sticking out like a sore thumb as it was anyway.

If the other guests were all like these two, he didn't see any hope of getting any useful information out of them and went back to the table Sam sat at. A good time, since Janice and Jandsome were coming back as well. From the looks of it, the stewardess was no more persuaded not to go through with it, than she was before.

"Ah, how nice of you to join us." the gleeful black goat remarked. "And? Have we made a decision?" She nodded. "Please, don't let me stop you, elaborate on what our business relates to."

"Pilot is gone."

The Dealmaker nodded. "You mentioned as much."

"I need to find him, and I have nowhere else to turn to."

Sam had to laugh. "I see now." He leaned back, closed his eyes and nodded. "You are in luck. He is here. In this very city, but he is in hiding. He fears something that might devastate him. The only way to find him, is to force him out of hiding. You need to threaten him with something even worse if he doesn't reveal himself, than what might happen if he does. I could indeed help you with that."

Slowly, he extended his open hand, ready for the handshake both she and Jandsome seemed to dread so much. "I caution you to think about your decision. Once you shake this hand, our deal is sealed."

Both tall humans swallowed. "Janice!" For a brief moment, the jester was speaking in Pilot's voice and bit his tongue upon realizing he did.

He placed a hand on Janice's and began speaking in a more serious manner than Kris and everyone else save for Berdly had seen him before. "You don't have to do this. Come with me instead. I'm willing to show you something that could resolve all of this. I'm sorry for everything up to now, but I can show you where he is." She stared back at him, frozen in motion. "You just have to trust me."

They continued to stare at each other, making everyone else around them almost as tense as they were. Eventually, the stewardess pulled her hand away and freed it from the jester's grip. "Take your hands off of me you, useless clown. You were no help up to this point, whatever you have in store for me next will leave us just as empty handed." She sat back and paused for a while, long enough for the other human adult to calm down and sit back as well.

Then she surged right to the Dealmaker's hand with hers and shook it before the jester or anyone else could do something. "No, no, no, no, no!" He tried to get up and reach for her, but he didn't get there in time. The moment her and the Dealmaker's hands met, Samuel's face lowered itself and the wrinkling between his eyes made his grin look more and more sinister. B

erdly and Pilot both were overcome with too much of a cold shower to move. Even if Pilot mustered the courage and took off that stupid cap of his right now, it was too late. The deal was sealed. Kris was so swept up in something he lacked the context to understand, he didn't notice he still had foam from his hot chocolate on his mouth, which Ralsei pulled out a tissue to wipe off.

"Pleasure doing business with you." Without further ado, Mr. Luxon got up and left. " If you excuse me, I intend for my end of this deal to be kept and have to make a few phone calls to ensure that it is."

The entire time, Jandsome just sat there, bracing himself to get up, watching Samuel leave. Once he was gone, he got up himself to go after him. From how he was checking around the corner once he reached the doorframe, it appeared that he didn't intend for Samuel to notice he was being followed.

"Berdly?" The bird snapped out of following the jester's movements when he was spoken to from the side by the prince. "What's wrong?", Ralsei asked.

He shook his head. "Oh, it's nothing." He could tell that was not convincing enough to fool Kris' friend. "Either way, hey..." He tipped Janice's shoulder. The poor woman had just been staring down at the table ever since he shook hands with Samuel. She was very hesitant to even react to him, even though eventually, she did. "...so what's going to happen next?"

She looked back down at the half-empty wine glasses. "I don't know. A miracle, I hope. Nothing short of a miracle is worth making a deal with the Dealmaker."

Outside, Pilot tailed Samuel and found him wandering around the corner to the extremely narrow path at the right side of the building between it and the wall of the metal 'box' they were in. Occasionally, when the Dealmaker wasn't looking, he'd peer around the corner, only to find Samuel doing exactly what he announced he would do. He was too far away to hear what Sam was talking about each time, but he really did approach an old-fashioned public phone.

He picked up the head piece and slid coins in before operating the circular dial to make a phone call. Multiple times. Right when he hung the phone back on the hook though, he removed the massive lock off one of the outside storage closets and pulled out two sealed briefcases before dispersing in a black cloud and vanishing. Pilot figured that he must have been spotted without noticing it himself.

Until Pilot returned, the rest was just awkwardly sitting there, occasionally sipping at their drinks, save for Janice. She ordered two more and in the time it took Kris to finish the rest of his hot chocolate. She downed them both and already asked for the next one, by the time the jester arrived.

When he sat down though, something happened. Suddenly, the musicians stopped playing and the dancers stepped aside. All the guests applauded Samuel as he suddenly appeared on stage to bow to them a few times.

After that, he stepped right to the singer and pulled the microphone out of his hands. "Thank you, thank you. Please, hold your applause. Ladies, gentlemen, my friends. What are you doing, only sitting there? You should always remember how lucky you are for being here. Why don't we all get up and dance, celebrate every day, every hour, every minute, as if it was your last. After all, nothing stops us from celebrating just as much tomorrow, does it?"

He clapped his hands together once. "That said, why don't you skip ahead in your program to something more slow. To ease our fine attendants into it." Upon seeing most of the people here remain seated, he began clapping his hands a little more eagerly. "Come on, come on, no need to be shy. There is plenty of room for everyone to dance."

Slowly, but surely, the couples got up from their tables to head to the areas in the hall that weren't covered in tables and chairs to match the rhythm of the music with elaborate ballroom dances. The moment he had assured himself that all the guests save for Kris and the others had gotten up to join the spontaneous ball in pairs of two, he left the stage again to head back to the guests that had his real attention.

"So what happens now?"

Sam smiled down at the curious young human. "Carpe Diem. As you can see, they are enjoying these moments as if they were their last. After all, even behind the safety of solid metal wall and a response team ready to dispose of every threat, the two things these fine ladies' and gentlemen's continued survival depends on, nobody lives forever."

Small black clouds formed in his hands and pulled together before vanishing and leaving behind two little contraptions. One in each of the Dealmaker's hands. They were nothing more than a grip and a button extending out of the top. Positioned for Sam to press them with his thumbs.

Kris pointed at them. "What are these?"

For a moment, Samuel jokingly pretended not to know what he was referring to. "Oh, these?" He grinned again. "Why don't we find out?" He pressed one of them, and with a terrifying thunder, the ground shook so much, the force ripped several chandeliers off the ceiling and shattered their lamps. Most of the guests stumbled and fell onto the floor.

Kris, Berdly and the rest of their party were desperate to grab onto the table and their chairs. In Berdly's case, it did nothing to stop him from falling over. "What was that?"

The only one who stood upright by the end of it, in fact he didn't so much as flinch, was Samuel. "The response team's headquarter, after I had all security gather up inside it. Now they're all dead, so if anything happened to the wall, we would all be defenseless." Then he raised the hand with what they could only assume was a second detonator to a second bomb like the one that had just gone off.

Kris, Berdly, Jandsome and Ralsei called for him not to, when he pressed the button on the other device. Pluma grabbed hold of Janice more tightly and the others were wise enough to not let it take them so much by surprise either and braced themselves for the next earthquake. Once the rumble of settling concrete or plastic and the clangour of shattering glass settled down, he continued. "And there goes the wall. Let's take a walk outside to see the results, shall we?"

Before this still calm and downright amused goat could walk too far though, the jester grabbed his arm with an unseen force. "Just what are you planning on doing?"

The smile was fading from the Dealmaker's face and made way for a tired, dismissive expression with his eyes barely open. "Collecting debts and keeping my part of a bargain." The same way he had summoned those detonators, he summoned a painted-white revolver which he pointed at Jandsome's head. "I would let go if I were you."

The jester's immediate reaction was to point at the ceiling, or rather at the little holes in it after bits of it had come down. "Wait! What is that?" And just like he hoped, Sam joined Jandsome in looking away from his gun and at the ceiling. "Ha! Point that thing at me all you want. It's only a..." They both resumed looking at each other, and at what Sam was pointing at him.

Only that to the jester's horror, it wasn't a banana. The Dealmaker finished his sentence. "...a gun. Those parlour tricks don't work on me I'm afraid. Now if you would be so kind as to follow me outside, I still owe your downright devastated friend a service and I intend to provide it."

"Is this it?" Janice had calmed down to no longer keep Pluma in a hug to shield her from possible debris and had placed her back on the ground. "Is this the part where you show me where Pilot is?"

"It is part of it. You made a deal, knowing anything could happen. A little more patience won't hurt. Are you or are you not willing to accept any price?"

The stewardess took a deep breath and got up all the way. "Of course." She followed him on his way outside. Jandsome tried to reach for her, but before he could, cuffs formed round his hands and pulled them back onto the table that had now fallen onto its side. The same happened for Berdly and the others. By the time the cuffs undid themselves, Sam and Janice had already left. The moment they were able to, the four of them ran after them. The upset guests only slowly followed.

On the square outside, the Dealmaker summoned his pistol again and vanished. Further ahead, just outside the crater located where the gate they entered through once was, one of the security guards was crawling and trying to make sense of what happened around him. Crawling, because he had already lost a leg in the explosion. Samuel reappeared right above the eagle, pulled him up by his shoulder and flipped the helmet off with his gun.

Once his head wasn't covered, he pressed the barrel of his revolver against the back of the confused man's skull and pulled the trigger several times.

"What is the meaning of this?" By the time Sam was back near Janice and Pluma, with the rest of the party catching up, some of the other guests had made it outside as well. One of them, the cockerspaniel from before, was now very worked up. "Did you just shoot this man?"

Sam shrugged. "Well I would have preferred incinerating him, but everyone in this city insists on those glorified toys. So who am I to break the trend?"

When screaming, the pitch of his guest's voice took on an almost comical height. "I demand that you explain yourself at once!"

The Dealmaker tilted his head to the side. As usual, his top hat didn't move the least bit. "Well this is certainly a tone to choose, is it not?" The dog didn't keep his anger for long, as suddenly, his former guest host appeared in front of him, grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted him off his feet.

"Don't think I didn't overhear your little conversation with my avian friend by the way. You should be ashamed of yourself. A lightner takes valuable time out of his day to come all the way here from the light world and bring the concerns of the common folk to your attention. And you thank him with mockery. I might as well indulge myself." Black flames shot out of the ground and engulfed the poor man. "Burn for your sins. BURN!"

His guest was no longer just struggling. He was screaming in pain, calling for help to no avail. His facial features blurred and the stinging stench of molten plastic filled the air. By the time the fire stopped and the presumably dead monster was dropped onto the ground, his face, was completely unrecognizable.

Once Sam was done with him though, there was no time to confront him about what he had done either. Right at the blasted-open hole, a little crowd was gathering. Lizards and sharks with freakish neon hairstyles, covered in black leather and chains of shiny silver spikes and metal plates. The one thing those well-dressed ladies and gentlemen didn't expect to make it here.

"Ah, and here comes our guest of honor." Samuel wandered across the square. A lot of the plates that made it so smooth had sprung out, revealing the rough connecting pieces below. The ground was still shaking. Not continuously, it had a rhythm to it. It came in steps. Something was coming. Someone big was coming right around the corner of what was left of the wall.

It was an alligator. In spite of his anatomy forcing him to hunch forward with his head and neck, he had an even more imposing height than that of Jandsome and Janice, and was monstrously wide. To describe his arms as 'tires' would have been an understatement. With two giant belts swung over his shoulders, one made of fifty-nine caliber bullets, one simply made of a chain of solid steel plates hanging off each side.

His chest was dressed in something resembling a suit jacket, shirt and tie, but loosely tailored to his size and with his sleeves ripped right off with sheer force. And even through his trousers, you could see that there was not one inch on his arms, legs and chest that wasn't covered in muscle mass. Metal rings hung on his arms, to which giant gatling guns were attached, that were longer than his arms, along with several-finger-long triggers in position for his hands to pull them.

And he just carried their weight with ease, along with the weight of the boxes of ammunition that hung off the backs of his weapons. Berdly recognized this person from the picture the infopage had shown him and a long, long discarded action figure he must have come from. It was Don Gatore, the mayor of Canyon City.

"Mr. Gatore! How nice of you to accept my invitation."

All the more with him coming closer, the Don's steps were so heavy, the ground shook with every one of them. He made his way to meet with Sam and Janice. The rest was right behind them.

The moment this titan opened his mouth, Berdly and Kris couldn't just hear him talking. He had such a loud, deep, penetrating voice, they could feel him talking down to their bones. "I AM OUT OF PATIENCE, LUXON. YOU HAVE HELD ONTO THE BEST PART OF TOWN FOR LONG ENOUGH! DEANDRE! THE NOTES!"

A normal-sized eel with bright green hair styled to hang off to the right side of his head, dressed in a leather duster, brought the mayor a large stack of paper. "HERE WE ARE, LUXON. NOTES OF EXPROPRIATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION FOR THAT PLACE..."

He pointed at a tall single-family house, opposite from the club. "...AND THAT ONE, AND THAT ONE, AND THAT ONE, NOTES FOR EVERY PIECE OF PROPERTY YOU HOLD! ALL BUT SIGNED BY THEIR NEW OWNER. PROCESSED AND DECLARED SOUND, VALID AND LEGAL BY THREE SEPARATE STATE OFFICES!"

The black goat looked up at the mayor, neither shocked nor surprised. "Now now, don't think I don't see through this. This does seem a little too convenient and one-sided for me to believe diligent and impartial officials just waved this through. Were the officials that signed off on this held at gunpoint or were they brawlers to begin with?"

His understanding on how this worked only further annoyed the enormous reptiles. He grunted. "HALF AND HALF. WHATEVER, IT'S OFFICIAL. EVERY SINGLE HOUSE AND GARDEN, YOUR WHOLE CLUB, EVERY PIECE OF PROPERTY DOWN TO THE LOWEST LEVEL INCLUDED IN YOUR LITTLE BOX NOW ALL BELONGS TO...UH..." He looked around, until he eventually just pulled the eel closer. "THIS GUY! IT ALL BELONGS TO THIS GUY NOW. JUST SIGN 'EM ALL WITH YOUR NAME AND THEY'RE YOURS."

His secretary tried to laugh off his awkward surprise over his newfound wealth. "Ah, gee. Thanks boss."

He turned back at the short monsters in front of him. "AND AS FOR OUR DEAL."

Samuel raised his open arms. "Oh you will love your end of it! That's where this fine lady comes in." He placed his hands on Janice's shoulders. "Those lightners you're after, those right behind me? Chances are if you go after them now, they'll find some way to escape. This lady right here makes for the perfect trophy for your brave conquest of my district, does she not? Not just that, but she is the perfect bait. Take her with you, find a nice and empty cell to lock her up in, leave her alone otherwise, and not only is your debt with me settled, but the lightners will follow her into any trap, ambush or dead end you set up for them. No need to scour the city. As long as you have her, you will always know where they're going."

He let go of the now terrified woman and went one step closer to the imposing alligator. "Well? Isn't this killing two birds with one stone for you? You're free of your debt AND you get a free piece of lightnerbait with a cherry on-top."

The mayor bore his teeth and stared into the Dealmaker's glowing eyes with one of his own. "WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?"

Berdly didn't want this to go any further as much as Jandsome did and tipped on his shoulder. Once he had the jester's attention, the only thing he whispered to him was "Smoke bomb." That was all that was needed for them to have a vague idea of what Berdly wanted. Kris and Ralsei understood it as well.

They memorized where Janice and Pluma were standing, and shortly thereafter, a smoke bomb appeared out of nowhere and went off just as fast. Everything was shrouded in a fog that burned in everyone's eyes. Jandsome and Berdly rushed right inside. The bird ran to where his sister was, grabbed her, and ran back.

The jester grabbed his girlfriend by her elbow and ran for it as well. They focused completely and utterly at running back through the smoke as quickly as they could and straight towards the club. Kris and Ralsei mostly only followed their direction. The Dealmaker's Den was big and had a lot of angles and places to hide and escape. Perfect to split up the army of brawlers that had gathered here by now.

They ran and ran and ran. After they gained a bit of distance though, the jester noticed something he neglected to pay attention to. Janice's arm was somehow slightly more muscular than he remembered it and once they got out of the fog, they all stopped and realized why.

Next to him stood not Janice, but a very smug, black goat. "I am flattered by your priorities, my disguised friend, but I believe the person you were going for is over there." Samuel pointed towards the impenetrable cloud that obscured everything that lay behind and within it. And in the distance, they could hear the shrill sound of Janice screaming for help off the top of her lungs.

"No! Janice!"

Before Pilot, now no longer changing his own voice, could run back, new shackles formed around his arms and bound him to the ground. The Dealmaker swung his index finger left and right. "Ah, ah, ah. Part of my service. Can't let you deny it." When they tried to raise their weapons, giant claws or teeth shot out of the ground all around them. Tendons of sinew grew out of the pavement to form several rings around the claws, holding them together.

They were trapped in a cage. While Pilot screamed at the suited man, what kind of 'service' this was supposed to be, the distracted Dealmaker just kept a look at the shiny-looking watch on his right arm. "Five, four, three, two, one. Okay, that's enough."

Janice's screams were already growing too distant to hear. The Don was hauling her off, just like Samuel had suggested. When it was too late, the teeth and the sinew evaporated into black clouds that rapidly diffused. By then, the smoke had cleared up a bit as well, leaving behind the sight of a growing crowd of countless brawlers that were now walking their way with their firearms loaded and ready to fire.

By the time the smoke cleared up enough for them to look for Janice, the Don was already marching away and with him went the sounds of the struggling and screaming woman. The swaths of brawlers he had come with were only very slowly approaching, if at all. "She's gone, Pilot." the caprine traitor cheered. "Too late, loverboy." He summoned a cane to support himself on and nodded the tall human's way.

And Berdly's.

"You were so scared and waited for so long. Now it's too late. The bad boy has your girl now. Oh, what's that?" He walked off to the side, where two guests were running down the one street to the side of his club. One of them was Charlotte, the wife of the citizen he had just burned to death. After realizing she was next, she figured to get out of here. Not that it did anything to save her, as Sam immediately appeared behind her back.

He held her head by the ear and executed her with two point blank shots to the back of her head, like he had done with that last security guard. The other fleeing guest met the same fate.

The brawlers were confident enough to take their time, but Kris, Berdly, Pilot and Ralsei couldn't stay in place. They ran back to the Dealmaker's Den, Berdly pulling his little sister by the hand. "Everyone! Back inside!" On their way, they herded the remaining survivors back through the entrance. And luckily enough for them, Pilot's voice seemed to be something they listened to. "With some walls covering some directions, we might be able to hold them off!"

The terrified mass of people rushed further through the foyer into the restaurant. When he noticed that they were stopping there, he called for them to keep going.

Once they had a moment of rest, Berdly, now furious for reasons not quite so obvious to Kris and Ralsei yet screamed: "Do something! Anything! Trip wires, mines, bear traps! These guys are out to kill us! Do anything it takes to keep them away!" With Ralsei pitching in with his idea of setting up stationary machine guns, the jester got to making things appear while they looked away.

When Berdly, Kris and Ralsei stood within the resturant, and then came back to look, it was all set up just as asked. All walls and pillars were connected with trip wires which were hooked up to rams that would crush anyone who broke through the partially boarded-up entrance and tripped over them. That was of course, unless they fell down onto the bear traps that covered every inch of the floor.

And he didn't forget the turrets Ralsei asked for, long chains of fifty caliber bullets set up to cover the entrance with fire if needed. Not much room for being careful and pacifying them left, but at this point, they were past pacifying and sparing as a priority. Surviving was more important.

Once their pursuers finally arrived, they were ready for them. The first one that entered immediately got caught in a bear trap and the prince was able to land several hits on him. As well as the two that dragged their friend back outside before any more could happen to him.

They made it. With little to no effort, they had set up a defense that bought them some time. At least they hoped as much. From what they could tell, the brawlers back ed off and stayed away for a while.

A silence settled on the air between them. For several minutes, they stayed there. Up and ready. Constantly on edge and expecting the next attack. Nothing of the sort happened though.

When the first of them were beginning to sigh over the moment of respite they had, the silence was broken right again by distant gunfire and screams. Only that this time, it came from behind them. Inside the building. "Go! I keep the exit clear!" Pilot told them. Already having wasted valuable seconds thinking about what to do, Berdly and the other two simply nodded and ran further inside, straight through the restaurant.

Berdly considered leaving Pluma with Pilot, but she was as much in danger as they all were either way. If she was with him, at least he always knew where she was. The very next hall further inside, connected to the restaurant through two double doors like the foyer, was a casino. Lines of shiny machines made for covers if they would need them. But here already, they found several dead guests. All of them lay on their stomachs with bullet holes in the backs of their heads.

Samuel. "He's inside." Of course barricading themselves wasn't going to keep out the one person that can just magically appear wherever he wanted. But upon following the trail of bodies and the screams, they actually did find him behind another set of double doors further ahead. In what looked like an indoor spa with a swimming pool.

More bodies littered the tiled floor and at the pool, they caught the culprit red-handed. He was holding a lion by the mane, who was swinging his claws at his soon-to-be murderer. "Stop!" Unarmed and with open hands, Ralsei got closer in an attempt to calm and dissuade the Dealmaker. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why?" Sam was already pressing his weapon against the panicked lion's head, but made it vanish when this question drew his attention away from what he was doing. "I thought this was obvious. I more or less told you when we first walked in here. But if you truly need to know, the reason is money. In a way. 'Business' would describe it more aptly."

"For a start, didn't you notice how quiet it got in here when those ruffians outside made it here with obvious intent to kill anyone they come across? Where did all my staff go?" He paused, and then acted as if the answer just occurred to him. "Oh, that's right. I seemed to have forgotten that UNLIKE ALL MY ESTEEMED GUESTS I actually moved all my employees out of harm's way."

"You see, most of the people here make their money off of other people's work. Their income is the blood and sweat of the people of the city, their subjects, you could say. And that is okay. In exchange for it comes a decision-making role. An obligation to act as a leader or a guide. A responsibility to put that income to use towards keeping their workers safe and in a condition to work."

He had let go of the lion, who was chained to the floor the same way Pilot was whenever Sam ran out of patience with him. "So then, when there was no reason to expect lightners to come to our aid, and the knight put an obviously hostile foreigner in the mayor's seat, when law and order was put in the hands of a criminal, what did my esteemed guests do? Did they hire lawyers and take this to court to fight it? Did they arm a militia to fight back against this homicidal despot? Did they put this money they make off the common man in ANY POSSIBLE WAY towards helping the common man? HUH!"

With an audibly painful strength, he grabbed his guest's mane again. "DID YOU? HUH?" He gave the desperate man very little time before interrupting the nods and stutters.

"No, no they didn't. The very first thing they did, was to come to me. LIKE RATS FLEEING A SINKING SHIP, THEY ALL CAME RUNNING TO ME! YOU ALL WOULD SOONER LEAVE YOUR SUBJECTS TO DIE AND MAKE A DEAL THE DEVIL HIMSELF TO SAVE YOUR SORRY HIDES THAN TO ONCE TAKE A STAND FOR THOSE WHO TRUSTED YOU! WHAT? YOU THOUGHT I WAS YOUR EASY WAY OUT? YOU THOUGHT YOUR MONEY WOULD PROTECT YOU FOREVER? YOU SIGNED YOUR DEATH WARRANTS THE MOMENT YOU SIGNED THOSE CONTRACTS!"

That was the point where he ignored any further pleas to spare at least this one person and just shot him dead right in front of them, with only a few metres of distance to Pluma. Berdly covered her sight, but she could still hear what happened.

Luckily, after that, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and calmed down again. When he did, he wiped possible dirt off of his hands. "Nonetheless, there is no need to feel sorry for them. I do admit, I am of course not demanding the same price from everyone. Janice is getting her wish and paid for it with her freedom. My guests wanted shelter from the common man's troubles, and paid for it with their lives."

Kris and Berdly both silently figured that this man was just crazy, but Ralsei was still trying to understand Sam's motives. "But why? Why did they have to pay with their lives?"

The Dealmaker chuckled. "There is a certain Karmic Retribution to life that transcends this realm. It transcends the dark world as a whole, perhaps all of creation. Bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. Short-term thinking leads to long-term disaster. Self-indulgence only worsens the situation for everyone involved in the long run." While he continued, a heat began filling the room, that nobody could really make out the source of.

They could hear a faint hissing or fizzing coming from somewhere behind him. "Sometimes, life isn't fair, and not everyone gets the bad outcomes their decision-making deserves, and in this case, I was happy to use my habits to help it along. Think of me what you will, but helping it along, bringing disaster to the self-indulgent, it feels a bit like a calling to me."

The heat came from the pool, the water was long boiling and evaporating. "In fact, I was so relieved to see you young fellows come here with such innocent minds by comparison. People here know so little about lightners, your world is so far removed from ours sometimes. I was worried if I met you, that you might go on a rampage and be even worse than the ruffians you fought. If you had, I would have had to kill you as well. Wouldn't you look at it, sometimes, life holds some positive surprises."

Once enough of the water was gone, black flames began to shoot out of the bottom of the pool and form a huge pillar that matched the pool's length and width. Berdly, Kris and Ralsei took a few steps back, but the Dealmaker didn't seem the least bit fazed by it. He was probably the reason it was happening. "And no need to worry about your friend Janice. If you make it to her, and I'm confident that you will, she will come out of this unharmed."

He walked backwards, right into the fire and could stand in it as though he was walking on water. He began to laugh in a shrill tone that didn't match Asriel's voice at all. He vanished in the fire and soon thereafter, so did the black flames. A few towels and a wooden bench had caught fire, but that was actual normal fire that Kris was rushing without a word to put out with a fire extinguisher he grabbed off a wall. The building was on fire, but at least the Dealmaker was now gone.


	11. The Antlers

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Love in Plastic

Chapter 11

The Antlers

* * *

In a half-burnt spa filled with half-drenched plastic corpses, Kris Ralsei and Berdly remained in place dumbstruck over the antics and the exit of the same person that both owned this entire district but also willingly handed it over and murdered his own customers while he was at it. "You know, Berdly..." Kris slowed down quite a bit once he was done putting out the last few fires. "...I'm starting to think Pilot and Jandsome really are the same person."

Berdly couldn't resist swinging his head back a little before leaning in his classmate's direction. "Oh really? Whatever in the world makes you think that?"

"Well, Sam called him Pilot and he said he was disguised, and I always somehow had this feeling Jandsome never really wanted us to find Pilot. Actually, I always sort of suspected something like that earlier already."

Mostly while trying to keep Pluma from seeing all the bodies, Berdly began leading her back to the casino. "Oh really? Did you now?"

"I wasn't thinking about it too much, because I wasn't sure it was the case at all, but yes."

Berdly maintained his balancing act of maneuvering around all the bodies while trying to keep Pluma close and not looking at them. "Why don't we ask him that when we get back to hi-" He was cut off mid-sentence by a massive rumble that shook the building. "Oh what is it this time?"

Pluma cowered together in his arms. "Berdie! I'm scared!"

"You've got every reason to." he snapped back at her.

"Berdly..." Ralsei shook his head at him. "You're supposed to tell her that everything's going to be all right."

The bird screeched at Kris' delusional friend. "Does anything here seem all right to you? This is all about as far away from all right as I can think! I feel like crying for Mom and Dad like a little kid at this point, but they're off on an island across the ocean having tea and crumpets for all I know. Why, Kris! Why is all this happeni - what?" He outright fell over when the place shook up right again.

By the time he had gotten up and the four of them made it back to the empty restaurant, it all shook one more time. And this time, more strongly than before. Berdly realized why and pointed to one of the kitchen doors. "It came from there!" It wasn't quite as long-lasting as the earthquakes from the explosions earlier. Much more of a sudden shake, as if something was crashing against the wall on a grand scale.

As expected, even behind the doorframes, the kitchen was separated into multiple rooms filled with the utilities needed to supply the entire building's worth of guests.

Cracks along the pillars that lined the morbidly deformed outside wall, made it very clear that that outside wall wasn't supposed to be bent towards the inside the way it was. The cupboards above it were broken, their doors hanging off of what little was still intact enough to keep them there. The same cracks also went along the outside wall, which as they just noticed, didn't have any windows.

Sam must have planned to kill all his guests sooner or later from the very beginning. It figured that of course he wouldn't want there to be windows they could escape through. And after rushing from the first kitchen to the next, they noticed the pattern and quickly understood what was going on. Giant, dome-shaped inward dents were visible in various places.

"The wrecking ball!" Berdly shouted. "They're trying to tear this whole place down!" Now that they were expecting the next crash, it didn't take them so much by surprise when it came. They were prepared and made their way back into the hall fast enough. At the end of it, stood Jandsome with his hands on one of the two stationary weapons they had set up.

Several of the bear traps in the front room were missing and the rams hung down with blood on the solid front ends. The brawlers had continued to try to get in.

"You're hearing it too, aren't you?"

They all caught their breath when they stopped next to him. "We're feeling it. They're going to come from both sides. Even more if we just run further back."

Now with this voice back to normal, the way Berdly knew Pilot sounded when he wasn't pretending to be someone else, the hopeless jester spoke up. "This is it. We aren't going to make it out of here, are we?"

Out of the blue, Kris pointed right at him. "You're actually Pilot, aren't you?"

Berdly rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. "When I said 'when we get back to him', I meant when we're not two steps away from getting shot at from all sides."

They were all quiet for a moment, and in that time, the jester's shoulders gradually dropped, he sighed and took off his fool's cap, reverting his face and the colour of his skin to that of the man they were searching for all this time. He stepped away from the turret and sat down with his back to the inside of the doorframe. Pluma's face lit up and with a wide open beak, it only began to click then. "Scott! We found you! We finally found you! Now everything is going to be okay!"

Pilot was so deep in resignation, he didn't even bother to correct her on his name. Pluma latched onto his arm and he dismissively ruffled the feathers on her forehead. "Yes. Yes you found me. Not that it makes a difference now."

Kris pointed at the foolscap he had thrown onto the floor. "Does that thing have some kind of voice changer?"

For a moment, Berdly covered the side of his face with one hand. "No, it's because it..." Then he figured something out. While the voice changing thing was probably coming from this vague omnipotence Pilot had while wearing Jevil's cap... "Wait...it does! Kind of!" He walked up to the spiritless man and gave him a slight kick with the tip of his shoe. "Hey! We're not going to die here! Put that cap back on!"

For a moment, his attempt at rallying Pilot failed. "What do you mean?"

"Just do it!"

He obliged. "But why?"

"You said you can do basically anything with this cap right?"

Pilot stared at the much less shaken up bird, still with little idea of where he was going with this. "Yes...why?"

After Berdly explained to him what he wanted him to do, the runaway pilot nodded. The teenagers and Pluma took quite a few steps back. What followed was going to be very loud. With a voice so intense it shook them up, the jester turned to the entrance hall and began to scream into a megaphone. "WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING?" He was speaking in Don Gatore's voice, but slightly distorted to make it sound like he was speaking not through a megaphone, but a low-quality loudspeaker.

"THIS IS OUR OWN PROPERTY YOU'RE DEMOLISHING RIGHT THERE. IF YOU'RE NOT HOPING FOR A NEW PAIR OF CLAY BOOTS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAYS, YOU'RE GONNA BACK OFF RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" He paused and all five of them remained still for a while. Staying still. Listening. But there was nothing. No tremors, no crashing, no rumbles.

The brawlers had stopped trying to tear the wall down. Upon giving it enough time to make sure, the source of the Don's voice shrugged. They might as well use this to further help with escaping this place. "I MIGHT YET FORGIVE THIS LITTLE SLIP-UP IF YOU DO AS I SAY! MOVE A LOT FURTHER BACK AND HUDDLE TOGETHER! THE CLOSER, THE BETTER. The moment of truth on how far they could take this was coming closer.

Pilot dismantled one of the turrets and carried the gatling gun with his bare hands to bring it through the foyer. It worked. A few dozen metres away from the entrance, the brawlers had formed as narrow a crowd as they could given their numbers. All they had to do from here was stand apart and fire straight at them.

With their weapons loaded and released, Ralsei and Pilot each fired a long salve right onto them and hit most of the brawlers that were in the very front. As soon as they noticed what had happened, the rest of them abandoned their friends and ran for their lives. "AND STAY AWAY!", the jester shouted still with Gatore's voice.

While the prince went ahead to pacify their wounded enemies and loot their pockets, the others formed a circle to discuss what to do next. "We have to rescue Janice!" Pilot was a lot more confident all of a sudden. Letting the cat out of the bag in front of more people must have been a relief. "As long as there's any chance of getting her out of there unharmed, I have to try."

"If we just chase after them right now, we'll run into an ambush."

"You know..." Kris tipped on Berdly's shoulder. "We just were in kind of an ambush a second ago and we're still alive. We'll think of something."

Berdly's eyes narrowed. He didn't like Kris' careless optimism, but he had a point. They had gotten themselves out of a lot of seemingly deadly pickles by this point. What ever Don Gatore threw at them couldn't be that bad either.

"HELLO? IS THIS THING WORKING YET?" Coming closer from the distance between the rows of formerly beautiful, but now burning and melting ruins, they could hear the Don's voice. Distorted from speaking through a loudspeaker, just as Pilot's was before, except that he wasn't the one talking.

A van came driving their way and stopped when it was just on the square and close enough for them to clearly hear what the Don was saying. There, it stopped with its left hand side and one of said loudspeakers pointing right at the five of them. From the same source came the timid voice of his secretary. "Not sure, Boss. Can you try saying something again?"

"HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO SET THIS UP? I DON'T PAY YOU FOR THIS INCOMPETENCE!"

"You don't pay me at all, sir."

"I DON'T PAY YOU FOR BACKTALK EITHER!"

"Hearing you loud and clear now, Boss."

"FINALLY. ARE ALL VEHICLES IN POSITION?"

"Yep. You say anythin', every corner of the city's gonna hear."

"SO LISTEN UP! I'VE BEEN HEARING THAT THE LIGHTNERS HAVE BEEN IMPERSONATING ME. THEY CAN COPY MY VOICE! FROM NOW ON, ANY INSTRUCTIONS YOU HEAR ME GIVE - IF THEY DON'T INVOLVE THE WORDS 'KILL' AND 'LIGHTNERS' AT SOME POINT, THEY ARE TO BE IGNORED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"

He cleared his throat. "THAT SAID, LIGHTNERS. I KNOW YOU'RE LISTENING. I DARE YOU TO COME HERE! YOUR LITTLE FRIEND IS SAFE AND SOUND, CRYING IN AN EMPTY CELL IN THE DUNGEON RIGHT UNDER CITY HALL!"

"Why is there a dungeon right under the city hall?" broke out of the bird.

"It's the Dark World, there's no point in asking these kinds of questions."

"YOU BETTER TRY TO GET TO HER FAST, I CAN HEAR THE SOBS FROM UP HERE! GO AHEAD! TRY TO BE SMART AND FIND SOME WAY AROUND MY GUYS! I'VE GOT SOMETHING SET UP THAT CAN MOVE AROUND FREELY. IT CAN'T BE STOPPED BY WALLS, NO SNEAKY WAY OUT OF THIS ONE. IT WILL CATCH YOU ANYWHERE YOU MIGHT GO. YOUR FRIEND WON'T BE IN A STATE TO GET YOU OUT OF THIS CITY WITHOUT THE GIRL. SO THE ONLY WAY TO THE LIGHT WORLD, IS THROUGH ME! WHATEVER YOU DO, YOU HAVE TO COME TO CITY HALL. AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS, IF MY BOYS CAN'T TAKE YOU DOWN, I WILL FACE YOU AND DO IT MYSELF!"

They tried approaching the van, but its driver made sure to keep a safe distance. When they came closer, it turned around to start driving down the road within the upper city. Every time they moved in a little closer, it sped up to move a little further ahead. Eventually, they wound up following it along the path the brawlers had fled in.

Past all the now burned and broken ruins that were once big, luxurious single family houses. Some used to be tall enough to reach the ceiling of the upper city's enclosure. "AND JUST IN CASE YOU THINK YOU'RE SNEAKY AND TRY LOOKING FOR SOME EASY WAY OUT, LET ME SPEED SOMETHING UP THAT I'VE BEEN WAITING TO DO FOR A LONG, LONG TIME NOW."

He cleared his throat again and took a deep breath before continuing. "ATTENTION, TO ALL BRAWLERS WHO HEAR THIS! THE RECONQUERING OF CANYON CITY IS REACHING IT'S CONCLUSION AT LAST. THE LAST MAJOR PART OF IT IS BACK IN BRAWLER HANDS! AND THE MAJORITIES OF THE SHARES OF EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS SECTOR IN THE CITY HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED - ALL IN A PERFECTLY LEGALLY SOUND MANNER OF COURSE - OUT OF THE HANDS OF OUR OPPRESSORS AND INTO MINE. OUR UPPER HAND, OUR GRASP OF THIS CITY IS NOW SET IN STONE. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR ANY MORE. THERE IS NO MORE NEED TO HOLD BACK."

Oh god, if all this before has been them 'holding back', what were they going to do if they weren't holding back? "NO MORE NEED TO PLAY NICE, NO MORE NEED TO SPARE ANY LIVES. NOW THAT THOSE CLICKERS AREN'T IN A PLACE TO FIGHT BACK ANY MORE, WE CAN DITCH ANY TALK OF COEXISTING AND GET RIGHT TO KILLING THEM."

"GO AHEAD. NO JUDGE WILL FIND YOU GUILTY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. THEY HAVE ALL BEEN SWAPPED TO BE FELLOW BRAWLERS. ALL THE ONES THAT HAVEN'T, KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT I'M GOING TO DO WITH THEIR SPINES IF THEY SHOULD HAVE THE GALL TO SO MUCH AS APPROVE A WARRANT, LET ALONE RULE ANY OF YOU GUILTY OF A CRIME! NO MORE HOLDING BACK! FLIP THEIR CARS, SMASH THEIR WINDOWS, KICK IN THEIR DOORS! FILL THEIR MEN WITH LEAD, BREAK THE NECKS OF THEIR WOMEN AND CRUSH THEIR CHILDREN'S SKULLS UNDER YOUR BOOTS. FIND EVERY LAST MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD THE CLICKERS HAVE AND KILL THEM ALL!"

"THEN WHEN THERE IS NO CLICKER BREATHING ABOVE THE CARNIVAL, FORM TEAMS, TAKE DOWN THE BEARS THAT GUARD THE CARNIVAL AND THEN KILL EVERYONE DOWN THERE AS WELL! MAKE THEM ALL SPEND THEIR LAST WAKING MOMENTS CURSING THE DAY THEY CHOSE TO SPARE OUR LIVES! HOW'S THAT, LIGHTNERS? WANT THIS TO STOP? THEN MAKE IT TO CITY HALL ALIVE AND FACE ME!"

"This person really has some anger management issues." To Ralsei it was surprising, to Berdly not at all. Of course he couldn't wait to get some homicidal action where he could put those gatling guns he always carried around to use. Berdly was too lost in figuring out whether Gatore was genuinely angry, or whether being like this was just his nature as a living action figure, to notice his classmate pulling out his phone.

Along with it, he pulled a large folder out of his little leather bag. By the time he took note, the human was already dialing some number he looked up in that folder. "Hello?" The person on the other end immediately picked up and from Berdly could hear even from where he stood, that they were seething as well.

Kris struggled to calm the grimy voice down. "It wasn't me, it...there's me, Ralsei, Berdly - my classmate - yes, the other one. And a guy that's dressed up as a court jester. We're in the upper city right now. Okay."

Kris took a step back, stretched out the phone to keep it in everyone's earshot and put the other person on speakerphone. A gnarly and furious sounding voice came out of it at once. "I heard everything! What the hell have you lightners been doing? You were supposed to prevent a war in the streets, not start one!"

Berdly just gave Kris a questioning look. "It's commissioner Brigham. The chief of the police here...I think."

"You think? Seriously, some almighty lightners you guys are." What kind of miracle was he expecting from them? They were just a bunch of teenagers. "Now tell me what the hell is going on and if it wasn't you, why exactly our mayor is holding speeches about killing all of us!"

Pilot stepped closer so he was in a better place to speak into the microphone. "It's Janice! She made a deal with the Dealmaker and then the Dealmaker killed everyone there and invited the brawlers to take over."

The angry commissioner stuttered upon hearing the very first words. "Pilot...Pilot? is that you? Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you!"

"This isn't important right now! The entire upper city is in ruins and everyone in it is dead! The inhabitants, security, everyone. The mayor has Janice! I'm going after him! I need to get Janice out of there at any cost!"

"What about the lightners? D'they agree to tag along?"

"She's my everything. I didn't really understand why she put herself in danger for so long just to find me, but now I do. I'm going after Gatore with or without them. Will you send me some reinforcements? Tech assistance? Any help would be a start."

The police chief sighed and took a moment to consider it. "I'll see what's possible. But I'm not making any promises. Listen. Old mayor used to have a pet dog. Dog's dead now. New mayor tried to eat it when he took office, but the dog house is still there on the right side of the garden unless Gatore demolished that as well. If anyone I send makes it to you, they'll be hiding somewhere around there, got it?"

The relieved jester's eyes widened. For the first time ever since they met him, he was hopeful. "Yes! Thank you! That's all I ask!"

"Yeah. You're welcome. And Pilot."

"Yes?"

"Good to have you back." He hung up right after that. Understandable, they must have been under siege more or less since the moment Gatore held his speech.

They fell quiet for a few seconds upon ending the phone call. Pilot took a deep breath, tensed his arms and clenched his fists. Then he raised his head again and looked at all three of them. Kris, Berdly, and Ralsei. "Lightners. I have to do this with or without you. Nonetheless, tell me, will you be at my side with this?"

"Of course you can count on us." Ralsei immediately looked to Kris, who put away the phone, stepped a little closer and gave him a thumbs up.

Berdly joined them, albeit with narrowed eyes. "It's not like we got a choice, right?"

A smile crept up Pilot's face. "Thank you. Now let's not waste any more time! We have to press forward!" He gestured towards the road they were following in pursuit of the van that had retreated completely by now and began marching ahead. "City hall is right this way." They had to hurry. They could hear it. They could feel it. The buildings to both sides were on fire, everything in and on them that could burn, was burning.

The toxic stench the evaporating plastic made for, burned itself into their nostrils. The walls were torn in by the same equipment the brawlers had tried to tear down the Dealmaker's Den with. They must have brought a lot of it when they arrived. Some of it was still there, the vehicles attached to them long abandoned.

Occasionally, they spotted one of them looting one of the dead men, women and children that used to live in these extravagant residences, but whenever they did, the brawler would stumble and soon run straight away from them. Especially if Ralsei released his rifle to prepare to fire.

In the distance, from beyond the walls of the upper city they could hear the sirens of the confused policemen's cars, they could hear the screams of the innocent inhabitants and the gunshots that quickly put a stop to the screams. The smooth, flat metal wall didn't ward off the sounds. It resonated with them and made them more audible than otherwise.

The city was burning, people were dying by the second, and they were all made very aware of it every second. Pluma was so scared, she was cowering and grabbing onto Berdly's side all by herself.

They occasionally ran short stretches, but they had to make sure they kept their breath and were ready to fight any time. Then, they arrived at another blown-open gate and wall, craters and dents in the metal casing around the upper city showing that similar explosions blew up this opening as they did at the Den. Immediately upon passing the craters, the upper city went on outside of the metal confines.

A tall brick wall warded off the rest of the city. It wasn't in the metal box, but it was still part of the upper city, as they could guess from the pattern of the long and wide, flat tiles that made up the square. Except that the square seemed a lot wider than what the tiles covered at first. Then, upon actually standing outside, where they could see the sky, Berdly took a few moments to get a grasp of what was odd about their new surroundings.

He went to where the tiles of the square ended, but where the square continued, and only then did he really grasp what he was seeing. The area wasn't really flat and wider than the square. At least, it wasn't built that way. At the ends of the square, began the open and ruined underground basements of various buildings that presumably used to stand there. A lot of the rubble-filled holes they had become were flooded with water from broken pipes.

And the bricks that stuck to the borders of those basements gave him more of a picture of what had happened here. There used to be houses everywhere here. Something ripped all the walls off down to the basements and pushed them away to the wall between this place and the rest of the inner city. And the giant heap of rubble must have been what was left of them.

With more of an idea of how this district probably used to look, it was clear that this square was actually a very wide promenade straight towards the wall. Opposite to it, with the remains of curved railings to both sides, led a humongous staircase further and further up a hillside. So far away from here, he could barely make out more, was a fence and a dozens of metres wide clock tower. Its walls could only be seen in a grim shade of brown against the dark world's nigh-lightless sky. "There!" That was where pilot pointed next. "City hall is that way!"

"Stop!" When they were just about to head towards the stairs, two figures came out of hiding. Two beavers, and if the species wasn't enough to tell, the plastic plates that mimicked the fur they were supposed to have removed any doubt that those weren't brawlers. They wore police uniforms as well, but except maybe for a pistol in a holster to each one's left side, they weren't armed.

Instead, they carried large briefcases with them. "Get down!" One of the beavers' gestures being directed their way made it clear they were talking to Kris and the others. Once both groups met up and retreated into a corner with a wall's worth of rubble warding them off from the rest of the open area, the beavers caught their breath and calmed down. "That was a close one! Blue skin, no fur, you're the lightner, right? Orange feathers, then you must be the other two."

"Yes? And you are..."

"Brick and Brack. We're from the precinct right behind that wall over there."

"You're the reinforcements Brigham sent?"

Both beavers smiled awkwardly and their heads sank down between each one's shoulders. "I think you had better file us under tech assistance. We don't really do field work."

The bird tilted his head and gave them a more stern look. "Wait, what kind of tech assistance."

The beavers exchanged a quick glance. "All-round as long as it's hands-on. Depends on what you need done. Security systems? Weaponry?" For the time being, this was good enough. He wasn't sure what rules applied in a magical city made of building blocks. And in the ruins thereof, allies were hard to come by anyway.

"So what are we hiding from?"

The two strangers began trembling again. "The mayor's got choppers patrolling the sky above city hall."

"Choppers? You mean like helicopters?"

"Yes! Police choppers. Two of them and armed to both sides each. If we were to head up to the gardens now we'd all be goners."

"Since when do the brawlers have police choppers?"

"The mayor confiscated them when he sued us over a parking ticket."

Berdly started to see a pattern here. Then again, if lawbreakers were put in charge of how the law was applied, what else could he expect? "You heard the mayor loud and clear, he wasn't bluffing. If we can't think of something to deal with those choppers, your chances at getting to the mayor are pretty grim."

"I'd say they're pretty grim already." The clicking sound off to their side announced a weapon that was pointed at them. The person holding it was the eel the mayor had come to the upper city with.

Berdly wasn't even surprised or scared. More than anything confused. He gave the eel a questioning look. He didn't even bother to look for his eyes, he just stared at that sideways strand of green hair on his head. "Deandre?" Kris was surprised that he remembered his name. "Aren't you going to run away like the others?"

Indeed albeit slowly and while still pointing his weapon at them, the eel was walking backwards ever so slowly. "Not gonna lie. I kinda do feel like runnin'. But I got backup." Then he stopped. Everyone stopped. An awkward silence settled in. The eel cleared his throat and fumbled around in his leather jacket. With phone out and having instant-dialed some number he recently called, he repeated himself. "I said, I've got backup." The more time passed, the further he backed off and the more nervous he got, until eventually, he just hissed at Kris and the others and ran for it. "What's keepin' ya! Get a move on, they're right below the stairs!"

The curious group finally stepped out of their little corner. The ground shook ever so slightly. It was so slight, they could only feel it with their feet and only if their shoes were planted straight onto the pavement. Then the tremors came closer. And at a much faster pace than the mayor's steps earlier. As if there were more legs marching. No, galloping.

Then the area around them did shake a bit and with a rumble loud enough to fill the entire square and the cleared-out properties around it, the brick wall burst open and an entire, pretty wide segment was outright broken out of it and pushed inward. It was being pushed by a creature with a thick coat of brown fur and an awkward-looking roundish face. It was the moose they had heard of.

The creature stood as tall as most of the ruins used to be before they were torn down and wide enough to match it. It pushed the piece it had broken off a little further with its antlers and then raised its head to flip it over and let it fall onto the ground, causing more tremors and propelling a current of dust away from it. "Woah! Simmer down there, big guy!"

A person sat on a wide bench, attached to the back of the moose through solid metal cables that were wrapped around its neck, front legs and antlers. It was one of the very first brawlers they met ever since they fell into the dark world. The shark with the mohawk, except that the had ditched his city costume completely. No hat, no jacket. Just a shark dressed like a biker.

Two more metal cables were arranged to be in reach of the shark's arms, which he held onto and tried to use to guide the animal. With negligible success. When he tried pulling on both, the ceature just raised its head and shook it. "Hold on, big guy! The lightners are right over the- woah!" He tried pulling its head in Berdly's direction again, but his guidance was only met with rejection.

A wild animal wasn't so willing to be steered by whoever thought to sit on its back. "That's it, you stubborn animal! You made me do this! I'm gettin' out the zapper!" The brawler stuck his hand in an unusually long pocket attached to his leather trousers and pulled out a lengthy metal stick with two more thin rods at its end. The rods flared up with a visible electric current flowing between them.

As soon as the animal would let him, he climbed up the back of his bench and struck the moose's back with the charged end of his little device. The effects of the current being channeled into the beast could be seen throughout its motions. It spurred it on into a sudden rage in which the brawler lost control of it for good and it began charging straight past Berdly and the others' little hideout, through the outside wall of the city and dragged a lot of rubble along its path.

The shark was barely able to hold onto his bench and was only hanging off of its side by one arm by the end of it.

"Wait, that's it, follow me! Quick!" Berdly had an idea and waved for everyone else to follow him. With his arm wound tightly around his sister, he ran back into the metal box as fast as he could, with everyone else following him. "That brawler's having problems steering the moose. And the metal is harder to get through than the blocks outside. Being in here buys us a little more time."

The two policemen took a little longer to follow them, and they needed more time to catch their breaths when they arrived. Pilot and Ralsei approached them. "So, what kind of tech assistants are you exactly?"

They were both still wheezing, but one managed to answer. "Anything. We're flexible mostly. Doors, bombs to blow up doors, firearms, security systems, tools to disable security systems...we're ignoring the mayor's regulations, so we can build whatever we want. Anything you want made and that could be useful, we can probably make. So where's Pilot exactly? I heard you found him."

Pilot took that as his cue to take off his fool's cap, if only briefly to show them who he was below it. "Oh, now I get it."

The prince raised a finger. "Whichever path we choose, we need to get to city hall. So we're going to have to do something about those helicopters. Can you make something that can take them down?"

"What, like a weapon? A gun?"

"Maybe something bigger, something that can take down a vehicle."

"So a bigger gun. Which would be a cannon."

"This city is a bit too advanced for cannons, do you have something a little less..."

Berdly stepped in to finish his sentence. "Dated. Do you have something less dated. More modern. Something more in line with cars, electricity and so on."

Both tech assistants scratched their chins. And their buck teeth. "Hm...we'll see what we can make."

After making sure they still had some time, Kris joined them as well. "Berdly I'm not sure what you're expecting. There's nothing here to make any weapons with."

One of the beavers smiled. "Oh I wouldn't worry about that." He pulled a building block, with its connecting segments laid bare, off of the torn down wall of one of the many destroyed houses around them. "We can make pretty much anything even with these. We just need an idea what."

"Right, while you figure that out..." He and Kris went back to be a little closer to the exit to keep an eye on that shark trying to get the moose under his control. "Whatever they make, to use it properly or get it up those stairs, we'll have to deal with that moose first. So what's the plan, Kris?"

The human had no discernible expression on his face whatsoever. "I have no idea."

"What do you mean you have no idea. Weren't you supposed to be the leader here?"

"Berdly, this is your toy box, not mine. You know more about any of this than I do. What is this moose?"

His classmate sighed. "It's a plush."

"Why is it here?"

"Because reasons - look. Okay, so it's a plush, right? What happens if you squeeze a plush?"

"Nothing."

"Right, it reverts back to its form the moment you let it go. The filling and the way its sown make it sort of elastic. So of course the police shooting it like I suspect they did, isn't going to do anything. If all I've seen of the dark world and how it works is any indication, any attacks we throw at this thing aren't going to accomplish much."

"Kind of like with K. Round."

"Who?"

"The checker piece. Susie wouldn't stop attacking it even though it would just heal itself back up and make itself even stronger every time."

"Mindlessly attacking any big thing that comes her way. Yep, that sounds like Susie all right."

"You know, she's usually not that stu..."

"Yes she is, Kris. Yes she is." He clapped his hands to bring the two of them back on-topic. "Now, moose. How do we deal with it. Can't be beaten with physical force, but..."

They spent a few more moments watching that brawler try and fail to take control of the creature, and all his attempts only leading to it jumping around and trying to shake him off all the more. "...but, it still acts like a wild animal. Like an actual wild, non-monster moose. Moose aren't afraid of confrontation, anyone that provokes them they just impale with their antlers or trample with their hooves. But they are afraid of a threat they can't impale or trample."

"Like what?"

"Fire. Fire-fire. Burning fire. Pilot!" He waited for their friend to come closer before he went on. "I'm going to need you to magic up a few things with your cap."

"And what exactly?"

"A very big heap of firewood and something that can push it around. Think construction."

"All right, shouldn't be too difficult." The jester stepped further towards the hole that was the exit and shouted back at all of them: "Everyone look away for a second!"

The beavers needed Ralsei to encourage them to just listen and followed suit, but other than that, everyone quickly closed their eyes or looked the other way. By the time they looked back at Pilot, he was sitting in a big yellow loading vehicle with the ordered heap of wood already scooped up and ready to push wherever the vehicle went. "Okay. How is that weapon coming along?"

Upon looking back, they noticed that the tech assistants had long gotten to rapidly assembling something big using nothing other than building blocks ripped off of the surrounding ruins.

"Right, now we just need it to burn and we're good to go. It's best if it's already on fire when we move out so we can scare the moose away in one big move."

"Need a light?" By the time he faced Pilot, the jester was already holding a lighter his way.

"Thanks. Pluma, stay with Ralsei." His sister obliged and walked over to watch the beavers assemble what seemed to be some kind of vehicle. By now, outside, the brawler had gotten the moose to turn around, but it only dashed right past their location again. Now it was in a position to drive it further inward where it wouldn't come back to them too soon. He held the lit flame against some of the wood and once it started burning, quickly stepped back.

"Okay, let's go!" Kris, Berdly and Pilot hastily climbed onto the back of the vehicle and squeezed into the driver's seat. Luckily for them, the jester knew exactly which controls to flip how and they were quick to hit the gas and pursue the animal with their mobile bonfire. It immediately switched from its attempts to shake off the shark towards running away from the fire. As soon as they had chased it far enough for it jump over an intact part of the wall, they got out.

"Berdly! It worked!" Kris pointed at three far-apart locations in opposed corners of the open area. "Now we need more fires there, there and there. Actually all around. The more, the better." As if of one mind, they simultaneously covered their eyes for the fool's cap to work and sure enough, more piles of wood appeared where they needed them.

Kris summoned his sword and impaled one burning log of wood to carry it over to another one of the piles and set that one on fire, and repeated it until every corner of their square and the flattened area around it was outfitted with a huge fire to ward off the beast. A ring around this whole place, with plenty of space within it to move around multiple vehicles if necessary. Now this was the last place in this city that moose would want to go to.

"Now then!" They hurried back inside the big metal box to find that the beavers's work was finished. But what they found prompted a more perplexed reaction than they first thought necessary. "What? Isn't that a bit overkill?"

"You wanted something bigger that isn't a cannon. I'm assuming the coast is clear." Before them stood a mobile set of heavy artillery. Two large rockets - homing rockets hopefully - mounted onto a truck that the beavers got into while Ralsei kept Berdly's sister out of the way.

They built an artillery set out of rubble from broken houses. While still driving outside and eventually parking in the very centre of the square, one of the two continued to shout their way: "This is perfect. Lots of room. Thanks!" They got out of the vehicle while the others followed, and proceeded to make adjustments on a console they had built onto the side. "We can lock onto them and have two secure shots, one for every chopper, but only if we get a clear shot. We can't do it from here. Either we have to get a bit further up there, or they have to come closer."

Berdly tilted his head. "Hm, so we're going to have to lure the - hey, stop!" Before he could go on, Pilot was already running up the stairs with a big, presumably bullet-proof police shield on his back. "What are you doing?"

He only briefly stopped to answer. "Not being a coward any more."

Mere seconds later, right outside the fence they could barely see from here, entire salves of firecrackers soared into the air and exploded into multicoloured patterns and ducking sideways out of the searchlights that chased him, the jester came running back downstairs with the pursuing helicopters' gunfire closely following his steps. "We got a lock on them!" the beavers announced.

With the push of a few more buttons, both rockets launched, one after the other, and headed straight for the helicopters. And they both struck them and caught them in loud, fiery explosions. They all took cover and could still feel the force of it. "Targets destroyed, both of them! We did it! Now go get'em, lightners. We're out of here. City needs us!"

Scared as they were, seeing as they were trembling since the very moment they first met those two, they were enough of a help this far, so Kris and the others understood them backing out now. "Good luck, Pilot!"

The five people remaining waited for a few moments until the last bits of burning debris rolled down the sides of the staircase. Then they started making their way up the stairs. Finally, things were moving forward and looking a lot better. At least Berdly thought so, until his whimpering sister, led up the steep steps by his hand, pulled at him. She didn't want to continue. When he turned around, she spoke up. "Berdie! Berdie!"

"What?" He stopped and kneeled down to level with her. "What's going on?"

"Berdie, don't you hear it? You have to wake up!" She looked scared. And something was going on with her.

"Hear what? There's nothing to hear, the explosions are over. It's time to fetch Ja- Debbie!"

"No! The buzz! You're gonna be late for school! You have to wake up."

He grabbed her tightly by both shoulders. "Pluma? Pluma what's going on?" He started seeing what was happening, but it was too weird for him to believe at first. She was sort of becoming...transparent. He could see the stairs she was standing on right through her. "What buzzing? Pluma, talk to me!" She was being silent, and looked a bit absent. And more and more, she was vanishing right before his eyes. "Pluma? Pluma!"

With uneven breathing he could see through her jacket, she nigh-whispered. "Wake up, Berdie. Turn it off. Wake up!"

Then she just disappeared completely. "Pluma? Pluma!" He couldn't feel her shoulders any more either, he was grasping thin air. Now his heart began to race even more than it was from rushing up these stairs and all the things that had been happening lately. "Oh no, Pluma! No! No, no, no, no, no, no! This has to be some weird dark world thing!"

His head aimlessly turned from place to place as if he was looking for something, but he was really just scrambling for something to not make him panic even more. He was frantically darting around and hyperventilating as it was. "Waking up! She was talking about waking up! Pilot! Infobadges! Do you have any infobadges?"

Infobadges. Those little red badges that allowed you to ask the nigh-omniscient infopage a question. He needed one right now. He had one hope. A hope that was keeping him from completely freaking out for the time being. While the jester was still looking for them in his pockets, the hyperventilating bird turned to his classmate. "Kris! Did Pluma tell you anything about how she came here? To the dark world I mean?"

Kris remained mostly calm in all this. "I'm not sure if she had any idea how, if I'm honest."

"Nothing about any closets or portals or falling way down or..."

"Nope. She didn't really think about it. I think she couldn't remember how." Okay, that gave his hope a little credence. But he wasn't going to calm down until he knew for sure that she was fine. "The most she said was that she flew here with Janice, but she never said how she got to where she met her."

Having found where he stashed them away, the jester placed one on the floor, pressed his finger onto the surface and stepped back. As expected, the weirdly-dressed parrot appeared right above the badge. "Hello. I am the infopage. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

"Yes. Do li - can you dream your way to the dark world - as a lightner?"

The page took a second to register the question and then responded with a calm that didn't match the overall air at all. "Albeit an uncommon occurrence, for as long as any records available show, lightners have always been able to travel to the dark world within dreams." Immediately upon hearing this, Berdly closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as he could. His suspicion was right. Pluma wasn't in danger. Perhaps she never was in the first place.

She was dreaming the whole time. "Detailed records on what conditions apply to this phenomenon are sometimes hard to interpret due to lightners - at least at first - often getting confused for darkners due to their visual similarity to a lot of darkners. But several common patterns emerge. Most notably, they have a strong tendency to neither be aware that they're in the dark world - possibly for lack of knowledge about the dark world's existence - nor the fact that they are dreaming."

"Though there is variation from lightner to lightner, they usually appear to be in a kind of trance state in which they outright refuse to think about things that might confuse them and usually pertain towards whether or not they're dreaming, such as how they arrived in their location. In fact, the location within the dark world that they arrive in is determined by what thoughts and desires shaped their dreams in the first place. One key example that comes to mind is..."

"Okay, that's all I wanted to know, let's go!" The situation they were in warranted feelings like fear, concern, and a paranoia warranted by the constant possibility of being attacked from any angle at any given moment. But Berdly didn't feel any of these things any more.

With Pluma awake and back in the light world, one big worry was off his chest. So above all else, he was relieved. "Pluma talked about a buzz. She meant my buzzer. My alarm clock is going off back at home and she can hear it. She never was here to begin with." Once they were at the fence that surrounded the humongous garden with the tower atop city hall almost at the other end of it, they stayed in hiding for a while. "Kris..."

He waited until he was sure he had the human's attention. "Are we dreaming, too? Is this some sort of dream?"

"Well for a start, I couldn't hear the buzzing and I don't think you did either. Besides, he said if we dream our way here, then we don't think about how we came here."

"I remember coming here after I fell into my closet."

"I remember the same thing. Speaking of your closet - "

"No!" He wasn't going to have this conversation now. Now was the time to settle down and explore the garden that lay atop the stairs. Janice was waiting to be reunited with Pilot. And Kris, Berdly and Ralsei had a fountain to seal.


	12. Point of no Return

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Love in Plastic

Chapter 12

Point of No Return

* * *

The garden around City Hall was wide and lush. With many bushes cut into sculptures. At least it probably used to be like that, until the brawlers disfigured the sculptures and covered them in spray paint. A few armed lizards with spiky arm bands patrolled the park with guns, but it was safe to assume unless they had something up and ready to give them a leg up, that they wouldn't risk fighting them any more.

The building consisted of a cross of four outer wings that hopefully distributed the pressure from the tower's weight in four directions, with the black blurb that indicated the fountain they were looking for rising up in the sky just a bit behind the building. But the entire front side of the front wing was torn down. It was a miracle that whole thing was still standing.

And in the distance, in the shadows of its interior, Berdly believed he could spot the giant alligator that had worked so long to turn this dream of a city into a nightmare. "So." They all huddled together in the shadow of a bush at the side of the staircase to observe. "Gatore said he had a dungeon right beneath City Hall. Any ideas where we could find something like that?"

"Probably inside City Hall."

"Or possibly..." Pilot stretched out his hand towards a stone structure off to the left. With two wide open and very tall stone doors. "This leads right to a huge mausoleum that stretches across almost this whole park. Everywhere you can see here - right below it, there's corridors of that mausoleum. And those doors have got to be wide open for a reason. That's of course unless the brawlers respect the dead too much to defile their tombs."

"Yeah, nah. From what I've seen as long as the dead aren't brawlers, they're happy to defile as many tombs as they can."

Kris nodded.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"They looted the mausoleum, dumped the people buried down there somewhere else and made it the Don's personal dungeon."

"Yep. Something like that." Throughout this whole conversation, Ralsei remained silent and gnawed at his claws. He was horrified at how whenever you thought those brawlers couldn't stoop any lower, it turned out they were even worse. The problem with getting in there, was that the entrance pointed towards the middle path between the front entrance to the park and the City Hall itself.

Even if only briefly, they'd be on display no matter what if they tried to enter. "We have to get the right angle and then swing right around that outer door, so we can get inside without getting caught." They followed Kris' lead and moved to the side to be positioned in a way in which the stone structure stood between them and the front area where the Don and a few of the patrolling brawlers were. This way they weren't in line of sight.

Berdly grabbed Kris by the shoulder and faced him. "Wait, how are we getting past the fence?"

"What fence?" When he looked back, he found Pilot smiling and a segment of the fence, right in front of them, missing.

"I'm guessing you can't just make a piece of the right wall of that stone entrance disappear too?"

"Not sure if it works that way. I have a better idea. Stay here." Pilot left and went off to the right side. They watched him sneak all the way around the right corner of the park and quite a bit to its side. After they lost him, some time passed before he showed up again, laying out some kind of wire on the floor along his path.

Upon holding it up, he revealed that it wasn't a cable, but the end of a wick. He pulled a match out of thin air, scratched it against a nearby stone surface and lit the end of the wick before dropping it on the floor. Then, they all lay in wait. Eventually, it was time.

All the way on the other side, more firecrackers soared into the air, and patrols all around released their weapons and ran towards the source of the noise and the lights. That was their cue. While the fireworks were still going and heads were still turning, they ran towards the entrance, each one grabbing hold of the outside stone door, swung around it and inside the stone staircase.

"WEAKLINGS! NO MORE DISTRACTIONS! COME AND FACE ME!" It appeared that they had drawn the Don's attention, but it wasn't sure whether he knew where they were. They didn't stop descending the staircase to listen if someone followed them, until they were all the way downstairs. At least as far as this set of stairs took them, as to the left and right of its end, there were two more that led even further down. It was dark down here. Few and far-apart candles only faintly illuminated the place.

Once they did though, a lengthy black cloud manifested out of thin air beside them. And when it dispersed, it left behind a familiar black goat with white glowing facial features in a white suit and his tie sporting a light blue in the light of a nearby flickering light. "Luxon!" Pilot grabbed him by his collar. "How dare you show your face here!"

Samuel smiled and placed his hand on Pilot's. "Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you. Besides, I'm on your side on this one." The jester only reluctantly let go of him.

Ralsei stepped between Pilot and Samuel to prevent any more confrontations and looked up at him. "You are?"

"Don't forget that I've made a deal with Janice. I am here to assure my end of it is kept. I know where she is, I will clear the way for you."

"Wait!" He was about to vanish again until the prince grabbed him by the arm. "If you're on our side now, could you please try and not kill everyone you come across?"

The Dealmaker placed both hands on his hips. "Really now? Those helicopters had people in them too, you know."

This time, Kris came to back up his friend. "Look, me and Ralsei have this thing going on where we try to not kill people if we don't have to. I'm not sure how we were supposed to befriend or pacify the helicopters either."

Though barely visible with all of them glowing, the Dealmaker rolled his eyes. "Fair enough." The revolver that had already appeared in his hand, disappeared and reappeared, but with him holding the barrel rather than the grip, ready to use the grip like a hammer to knock out his targets instead of shooting them. "This won't take long." Samuel summoned a cane into his other hand and then vanished.

After mere seconds, he was back. "Traps disabled, ruffians knocked out. Nothing is between you and her any more. Nothing but yourself that is, of course."

The corridors had rooms to both sides everywhere. Chambers each with a coffin on an altar. Each chamber was turned into a prison cell by hastily attaching a set of bars to its front to keep the ghosts, skeletons and occasional vampires, all of which glowed in white and light green against the darkness of their tombs, that grabbed onto the bars and intently watched the varying group of strangers pass them. "They were talking about lightners coming!"

"You look different than them! You're the lightners, right?"

"The lightners have come to save us!"

"Please open those cages! Free us!"

"Well, if the dead were ever resting, they aren't any more now."

Berdly felt he had to chime in. "Don't do it, Kris." That human was glancing off towards those dead people too much for him not to. "They're just going to cause more chaos."

"We will, on our way back." The dead cheered upon hearing Kris say that. "But keep it down, please...thank you."

The path that Samuel led them in wound around several corners. He didn't begin pointing towards Janice's cell until they reached the very end of the longest corridor this floor must have had. Once they recognized her by her coat, the rest stayed back, while Pilot slowly approached her. She was still crying, just like Gatore said she was. "Janice? Janice! We found you." She did turn around briefly, but she turned her back on him as soon as she saw the jester.

"Go away." She tried to scare him away, but her voice was trembling so much, her attempts to shout just came out as louder, shaky wails.

He lowered himself a little and reached out for her with one hand. "We're here to get you out of here."

It wasn't any use. She just kept crying with her face buried in her hands. "What difference does it make? The city is dying, and all because I wanted him back. It's my fault! I did all this, and I still don't have him back."

He kneeled down and shuffled a little closer. "You can just go home, he might come home if you do!"

She shrieked back at him. "Get lost!", but as soon as she was looking back at the wall, she apologized. "I'm sorry, I appreciate you trying, but there's no point. It's just...Just go. There's no point in going anywhere without him. Without him, what else would I have to go back to? He's gone. And nothing you say is going to bring him back. Just leave me alone."

"No." He came closer until he was a mere two steps away from her. "There is something I can say." He took one deep breath, paused for a moment after that with his eyes closed, and then took off his fool's cap and spoke with his true voice. "I'm sorry. This cap suits me. I was a coward and a fool."

"Pilot...Pilot?" Still in disbelief at the voice she heard, she turned around to see his face. "Pilot!" She shuffled closer and wound her arms around him. "Pilot! It was you! But why?" She cried into his shoulder for a few moments, before randomly swinging her fists down his back in a sudden tantrum. "Why would you lead me on like this? Why?"

He just took it. The tremors in his shoulders showed to the younger ones that he was as swept up in this as she was. "I wanted you out of harm's way. Either out of the city or in the safety of that town. I thought if I led you around circles, you would give up and stand back at least for a while. The lightners would seal that fountain and we could all go back home safely."

"But why? Why the disguise? Why did any of this happen? Why now?"

"Now is not the best time for this. Come on. We'll go back home, we'll all calm down, wash up and when all the excitement is over, I will show you why. I didn't forget our anniversary, I promise. It is part of the reason why I...why all this happened from the start." They stayed like this for a while. She was still crying, but she was crying into his shoulder and they could all hear that it was subsiding. "Now, now. You want to go home?" Janice didn't say anything. She just nodded with her head against the side of his. "Let's go home." They got up.

With his arm still wound around Janice, the former jester passed by the former club owner. "I guess I owe you a thank you for leading us back to each other. Even if it took destroying the whole city to do so." With a sinister grin, the Dealmaker stepped back bowed, and vanished in a momentary burst of black flames.

With no regard for anything, the human's intentions to push forward burst right out of him. "Now for the ghosts and skeletons." The moment the human brought them up, all the other no longer resting 'inmates' cheered.

"Wait, Kris, you can't be serious."

"The ghosts are our escape plan."

"Do you really think the best exit strategy is to unleash an army of undead?"

"They're still better than the spiky lizards."

Berdly lowered his head and the opening on his beak shifted to the side. "I guess you're right. Okay, everyone! You're free! Time to get spooky and scare those brawlers as much as you can." Kris dug his sword into the metal pipes that were used to hold the gates and yank the lids off to pull them off.

Berdly just aimed his clown pistols at the locks for long enough to make them explode and neither really knew what kind of spell Ralsei was using to open the doors, but it worked. The happy denizens of the mausoleum rushed right past them and helped free more of them. The halls between the chambers became more and more crowded.

Once enough of them for free for them to free themselves at enough of a pace, without Kris', Berdly's and Ralsei's help, the very relieved and very tall couple went up to the teenagers. "My friends, thank you. For everything. I could never repay you in full. But..."

He pulled his cap back out. "Janice. This thing only further enabled my mistakes. But the one who gave it to me, did so with the best of intentions. I wouldn't do it justice if I didn't use it to its fullest. If only once. Is that all right?" She gazed at him and nodded. And sure enough, he put his cap back on. "Let's clear the lightners a path to the Don." With newfound confidence, he set to accompany some of the skeletons up the stairs. "Lightners! Focus on the Don. I will draw enough of the others' attention."

The three of them stayed back for a bit. Kris took a deep breath and gave both others a look. "Are you ready for this? This is it. The final battle."

"Of course!"

Berdly sighed and followed him as they turned around to follow the crowd. "You've always been good with these battles somehow. We'll do this. Whatever commands you have, I'll follow." Now it came. The moment of truth. They ascended the stairs back outside.

Everywhere, floating ghosts and rattling skeletons were swarming the more numerous brawlers. Pilot hadn't done anything yet, but once they joined up, he began to move. He swung one arm to the side and upwards and shouted: "Chaos!" He was putting on his squeaky jester voice again, too. Next to a snake in black leather with brass knuckles on both hands, a two metre wide and long patch of grass just flipped open like some kind of lid.

Mounted onto an oversized spring, a huge jack-in-the-box sprang out. Except instead of some clown- or jester design, the object that sprang out was modeled after Ralsei, dressed in his green robe with his hat, wielding a rifle. Pilot swung his other arm. "Chaos!"

A drake with horns, who's leather clothing you could almost describe as leather armor, was covered in pieces of glittering metal, shrugged together when another patch of grass opened up right behind him to make way for another jack to spring out. This time with a design that depicted a huge Kris, in his armor, striking out with his sword. "Chaos!" A third patch launched a shark that stood on it a bit away upon opening up and sprang out a bunch of bananas for a 'jack'.

The park was very, very big. And thus there was a lot of fence around it. Even with as many people all around, it was impossible for someone to stare at every single piece at all times. So gradually, one by one, it appeared that the segments of the outside fence grew legs and began walking about in random directions.

The defaced bushes fell over and began rolling around. The ones that bumped into a brawler, had spider legs extend out of them, followed by a spider's face and a spider's abdomen and began attacking them.

Before any of them had much more time to react, Pilot took an impossibly deep breath and began shouting anew. "Chaos! Chaos! Chao-Cha-cha-cha-cha" At an impossible speed as if it were just a sound byte being replayed in rapid succession, he repeatedly shouted 'Chaos!' and one by one, each time he did, almost every bit of the park's grass opened up and had more jacks shoot out everywhere.

Finally, Don Gatore stepped outside through the torn-down wall. He was so big, he had to bend down to fit the hole they had torn into the front wall. "WHAT IS THIS? STOP SCRAMBLING AROUND! DO SOMETHING! KILL THE LIGHTNERS AND ANYONE THAT COMES HERE TO HELP THEM."

With them laying bare from the sleeves being long torn right off the mayor's custom suit, you could see the muscles on his arms shift with his anger, while he raised clenched fist into the air, along with it the gatling gun that was attached to it.

Kris and the others were already walking up to him, but Pilot sped up to dance ahead of them and wagged his index finger at the Don. "Now now, my easily infuriated friend. Is it not rather dangerous to stand so close to a rocket that's about to take off?"

The Don assumed a menacing battle stance, with his elbows raised so far, they were at his head's height. "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU ON ABOUT?"

The jester folded up his arms, smiled, and then pointed to the side of the building. Upon closer inspection, the central tower of it now had fins at the corners that reached all the way to the ground.

The Don even stumbled a bit himself when he saw and heard the bright and noisy stream of fire rushing down from further up in the central tower. From somewhere, a voice announced the countdown. "Four, three, two, one, ignition!" And just like that, with a rush that drowned out all other noises the clock tower of City Hall lifted off and flew away. Leaving the swaths of blackness flooding up from the pool in the distance much more clearly in their sight.

"THAT WAS CITY PROPERTY! MY PROPERTY!" He swung around and aimed his weapons towards where the jester stood, but the moment he did, a cracking noise preceded a wave of confetti showering down right where he was supposed to stand. The giant reptile pulled his triggers, after a second of delay, the stacked-together barrels began to turn and unleash countless shots Pilot's way, but they all hit the earth.

He was long gone by the time the Don had opened fire. Whatever else Pilot may have been doing with that cap, it was working. The brawlers were leaving the area all around, driven away by jacks, giant plant spiders and spooky skeletons. Time for the Fun Gang to roll in. "YOU!"

"Berdly..." Kris tipped on his classmate's shoulder before this went any further. "I'm going to give him an out. One chance."

"What?"

"We did with King, too. We have to see if it's possible. Remember, that stuff we told you earlier. It's obvious that King was under some kind of mind control. We have to at least give the Don a chance to snap out of it."

"YOU MAY HAVE GOTTEN PAST MY TOYS AND THAT OVERGROWN ELK! BUT MOVE ONE STEP CLOSER TO THIS FOUNTAIN AND YOU WILL ALL HAVE FIFTY CALIBER ROUNDS PEEKING OUT OF EVERY INCH OF YOUR SKIN...OR FUR...OR FEATHERS!"

With the wind moving about his cape and a swing of his arm, Kris pointed straight at the Don. "Ralsei! Try to reason with him!"

Berdly couldn't suppress a grin. "Way to be dramatic, Kris."

The prince stepped forward, cleared his throat and tried his best. "Mr. Gatore...sir...listen! The bears, all those creatures down in the carnival, they're not citizens either, and yet they can get along with them just fine. Maybe you can, too."

"THEY WILL DIE AS FAST AS THE CLICKERS WILL, ONCE WE'RE DONE WITH THE FORMER!"

Kris followed Ralsei and moved a bit to the right side. "Gatore, the citizens imprisoned you because unlike the people at the carnival, you were robbing and murdering people. They don't deserve any of this."

"THE MOMENT THEY LAID HANDS ON US, THEY COMMITTED AN INJUSTICE THAT I WILL NEVER FORGIVE! WHAT WE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE TO 'deserve' IT IS MEANINGLESS! THE INJUSTICE STANDS! UNTIL WE HAD OUR JUSTICE, THERE WILL BE NO PEACE! AND WE WON'T HAVE HAD OUR JUSTICE UNTIL EVERY LAST CLICKER LIES DEAD IN THE SAND!"

Taking this as his cue, Kris lowered his head ever so slightly, and he moved a bit further to the side to help cut off his way in case he was going to flee in that direction. As far as he was concerned, there was no other way than to fight and even kill him. This alligator just wanted to kill everyone no matter what. This stuff about justice sounded like word salad to rationalize it to him.

"NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS, ONCE I'M DONE WITH YOU, WE WILL HUNT DOWN EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE CLICKERS!" The reptile turned a little smug and began pumping his arms up and down to cheer himself on. "WE WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE! WE WILL RUN THE SHOW IN THIS CITY! THEN WE WILL RUN THE SHOW IN OTHER DARK REALMS! AND IN THE END, WE WILL RUN THE SHOW IN THE LIGHT WORLD, TOO!"

"That's it." And with another point in the Don's direction, the human called upon their third member. "Berdly! Say something annoying to him!"

Berdly's time to step forward. With both clown pistols drawn from his orange jacket, he was a bit more confident. "Hey! Chippendale Croc! You're not running anyone's show. My two friends met someone like you in the dark world before. Signs of a struggle, a weird obsession with the Knight, he was under the Knight's control. Just like you. You're no Don. A basic street goon at least can think for himself. You can't even do that."

Not only was he not interrupted. The Don wasn't impressed in the slightest. Instead, a wide grin crept up those open jaws. "CURIOUS! YOU THINK I'M THE KNIGHT'S MINDLESS PUPPET, HUH? A MARIONETTE WITH ALL ITS STRINGS AT HIS FINGERS. A TOY FOR HIM TO PLAY WITH AS HE PLEASES."

He bore the many sharp teeth he had. Clean white, but thinner and even more sharp than Susie's. "I'VE GOT HAVE SOME BAD NEWS FOR YOU THEN. YOU WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING ABOUT THE KNIGHT?" The reptile adjusted his fingers to be right on the triggers on both hands.

Kris could tell he was intending to fire any moment. Or at least to be ready to do so any time. Which meant he already had a target in mind. And those brief glances right at him told him it was him.

"THE KNIGHT CAME BACK ONLY A DAY AGO. HE GAVE ME THE SKETCHES, THE COPIES OF WHICH I GAVE OUT WITH A BOUNTY ON YOUR HEADS. BUT WHEN HE DID, HE TOLD ME VERY CLEARLY - HE INSISTED AS MUCH MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE! OF THOSE THREE ON THE PICTURE HE THEN GAVE ME, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, I WAS TO KEEP! THE HUMAN! ALIVE!" They could tell he was inhaling from those nose holes in the front widening.

He pulled up his weapons, swung right Kris' way and began to fire. Kris ran straight ahead, waited out the barrage and ducked under the start of it on his way. He rushed inside, past the Don, up the half-molten railing to take shelter there and hide around the corner in the mostly open ruin of this public building.

Where the bullets struck in the mayor's attempts to hit Kris, splinters of charred wood and the powdery residue of molten and brittle plastic was blown into the air around them. Even towards the laughing mayor himself. "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I AM EVEN TRYING?" The left and right wing of the building had an upper floor, one of which Kris had made it to, connected to the ground floor with stairs.

With him turning around and pointing both his weapons inside, Berdly saw his chance. And there came Kris' command to use it too. "Berdly! Smugshot!" He pointed both his pistols at the mountainous reptile. He waited for the circles to overlap the way he needed them to, and shot. The little 'bang' flags came out of the barrels and a patch of skin the back of the Don's left shoulder bloated up and exploded, splattering the wincing creature's blood in various directions.

"YOU LITTLE..." By the time he turned around, Kris jumped off the railing with his sword in position to swing and bury it into the creature's back. Right above where the ammunition belts that covered his chest and back crossed. And deep enough into the solid flesh for it to make for something to hold onto.

Unfortunately, he realized too late that he made a miscalculation. Unlike Susie, the Don had a tail long and wide enough to match his size and with a single, painful swing, he could slam him aside and knock him onto the ground. "ANNOYING MONKEY! EAT LEAD!"

Kris quickly pushed himself up. "Ralsei, defend and protect, Berdly, shoot a lot!" He didn't have more time for more detailed commands, as the Don raised both his arms in opposite directions. One of his weapons, he aimed at Kris, the other at Berdly. Kris ducked under the weapon arm, ran closer to his enemy, re-summoned his sword and jumped up.

Already when pushing himself off the ground, he struck out to swing his sword with everything he had to bury it at least a bit into the arm that was already lowering itself his way. Berdly stretched out his pistols and fired again and again as if his life depended on it. And his bullets did hit the creature and penetrate his skin, but it was beyond unrealistic how sturdy Gatore was.

Before he could do much more, the Don's weapon was pointed at him and he pulled the trigger. Right as he did, the prince had swung his bright scarf around himself and Berdly, and used his magic to harden it. The bullets still got through, they were still painful enough for them to be thrown off balance and came with enough force to launch them back a bit, but they weren't nearly as strong as they could have been.

Hanging onto the hulk by his sword like before, Kris saw the Don raise a leg to try and kick him off. He swung his legs forward, let go of his sword and dropped onto the ground not far away and got back up as fast as he could. Not a graceful move, but he avoided getting kicked with the full force of that creature's leg.

He ducked away from the soon incoming gunfire behind a staircase. Those gatling guns were made of solid metal and longer than his actual arms. He figured the more they injured Gatore's arms, the slower he was with moving around the weapons mounted onto them. Kris did manage to hit him. Just not enough to do much. "ENOUGH!"

The Don finally made a decision on who to go for and turned around to pursue Kris. When the human realized that, he rushed further behind through a doorframe to the ground floor rooms below the right hand wing's upper platform. The frame was too small for Gatore to get through without tearing the whole thing down, so as soon as he was sure he wasn't at an angle where he could be directly hit, he had more brief commands to shout out to his already closing in party members. "Berdly! Ralsei! Jevil thing on the arm!"

While the enraged alligator was grabbing the upper side of a doorframe to rip it off along with the wall and floor above, Berdly and Ralsei exchanged a questioning look. "Jevil thing? Wait, Jevil thing!" He meant the routine they did every single time Jevil was done with one of his attacks. Before the mayor could pull away his arm or aim it their way, Berdly began to aim for it and Ralsei made sure his rifle was released one last time.

Only unlike with Jevil, they didn't so much fire their weapons one after the other, but at the same time. The back of Gatore's upper arm bursting open in a bloody explosion made him flinch enough to stop tearing open the ceiling to get to Kris, and the salve of bullets the prince sent his way only further tore open and deepened his wound.

The Don grunted, and apparently changed his mind on who to go for. He pushed through the pain of his heavily bleeding arm and swung both his weapons up to the bird and the prince. They fled up the stairs like Kris had before. And ducked, but even so, albeit softened by Ralsei's scarf, he did hit them a few times.

Below, Kris realized what kind of room this was down here. On a large table lay an enormous stash of plastic bags. Each one filled to the brim with what he could only guess was the same dust some of the Don's goons sold on the street. What Ralsei and Berdly needed more than anything, especially now, was a diversion.

He thought of something, but with the Don standing right next to the torn-open doorframe, it was almost as precarious as his last two maneuvers. He hadn't touched the lights since they set out to visit the Dealmaker. If he made one mistake, he'd have to start over from there. Even so, he had to try. He grabbed one of the dust bags.

Luckily for him, when Berdly and Ralsei drew Gatore's attention by inflicting a heavy wound on his right arm, he stepped away from it for a little. With a bag of dust in each hand, the human charged outside, past the alligator and only stopped when he was only just out of range for his tail to hit him. He dropped one bag on the floor and summoned his sword back into the hand he had carried it with.

Once the already weakened creature registered him coming back out enough to start turning around, Kris took this as his cue. He tossed one bag up into the air and when it fell back down simultaneously with the Don's face turning his way, he swung as strongly as he could with his sword starting behind him, downwards, and with all the momentum gathered on the way, upwards straight through the falling bag.

Cutting it open mid-fall and unleashing a cloud of dust that got both in his eyes and those of the alligator. He was taken a lot less by surprise though, so he had an opportunity to grab the other bag and run through the opposite doorway into the lower room there to put walls behind him and the Don again.

"MY DUST!" When the surprised giant was still busy rubbing his eyes and the prince was occupied patching up his and Berdly's wounds, something caught the bird's attention. Ralsei's gunfire had left little dents on the Don's right hand weapon.

The weapon itself wasn't indestructible. That gave him an idea. He ran to the end of the upper platform to look down past the railings and aimed his pistols down at Gatore's right hand weapon. Specifically the components that funneled the ammunition from the box that hung off his elbow, to the weapon he used to fire at him at Ralsei with before. He timed the circles on the reticle that appeared and pulled the triggers.

One of the metal bars deformed and burst open, with metal shrapnel flying everywhere, including right onto the Don himself. "WHAT?" The ammunition box only dangled off of his arm by the one remaining point it was being held from and the chain of bullets was severed. At least on one arm, he was going to run out of ammunition very soon.

The human on the other hand, ran straight towards the Don again. He was more confident in those dust bag stunts to work now. He threw the dust bag upwards and forwards the Don's way, and while running after it, swung with his sword downlow and upwards right at it again.

On his way, he was feigning the wrong angle, and when the beast raised his arm and swung down to try to crush him, still blinded by the suffocating cloud, the human had already made a sharp turn to the side and sprinted straight past him and back upstairs to the other two. His plan was to open his inventory to grab cake pieces to heal himself and the others back up.

But that was interrupted when something lit up. A bright red glow emerged from his chest. Strings of this red glowing thread connected to Ralsei's hands. He smiled and nodded. A little swirl of light in all colours of the rainbow formed around the prince's hand. When he stretched it up into the air, the light surged up from the floor and around all three of them. All the pain was going away. Bullets still stuck on them loosened and fell out.

Within a moment's notice, the wounds the three of them had sustained, were healed. Even their clothes and armor were restored. No cake necessary. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!" Now facing all three of them at once, the alligator wound his left arm around his right arm, grabbed the gatling gun by its barrel and ripped the rest of it right of of the arm that must have been growing numb from all the blood loss and grabbed it with his left arm to swing it up and past his shoulder.

With the ammunition box still attached to its end. He raised it again, and began swinging it around like a club or a morningstar. With a slow, but powerful swing, he hurled it right at them onto the upper floor. Staggering them just from how much the ground shook under the impact. Where it struck, it burst straight through the floor they were standing on and dragged the lower ceiling and anything that may have hung onto it with it to the room below.

While he did, something unexpected happened. Kris got a phone call, from Janice' number. While cowering together and bracing himself to dodge whatever attack might come next, he put them on speakerphone. "Lightners!" It was Pilot. "I'm going to need you to get out of that building and fast." They had to jump to the side just to dodge another attack. The Don's swings were slow, but each time they came, there was less of the upper floor left to dodge onto.

"Why?"

"Because that 'rocket' that took off is flying in a loop, it's a homing rocket, it's aiming for Gatore and it's coming your way right now. You've got to get out before you get caught in the crossfire." They had to jump to the side again. It was a good thing those weapons were so heavy and both his arms were injured, or else the Don wouldn't have been slow enough for them to evade his attacks so easily.

Nonetheless in sight of their limited time, Kris grew desperate enough to just start throwing his sword at the Don, re-summoning it and throwing it again. It was surprising how well a technique for throwing pens and pencils worked for aiming and throwing a solid metal weapon. It did work to throw off the creature, too. For a second, Gatore let go of his 'club' to reach for the sword that was heading for his face, right before it vanished. only to be thrown again. His right arm grasped the edge of the upper floor to hold onto it. The railing and the ceiling below crumbled under the force of his hand.

"What?" Berdly shrieked. "You can't be serious! How are we supposed to..." Kris tapped his shoulder and pointed at the outside wall. He immediately got what he meant, stopped pointing his guns at the Don and aimed for the corner between the floor and the outside wall instead.

Kris and Ralsei had to scramble to distract the Don and dodge another of those swings that rocked what little was left of the floor, because it took two explosions from Berdly's weapons to blow an actual hole outside. "Quick!" Before they could figure out some good timing, Kris jumped ahead and landed on his hands and feet. He had remembered that you could actually fall from much higher distances here than in the light world.

And once on his feet, smiled at the other two and waved at them to do the same. Ralsei trusted him enough to do it without hesitation. Berdly had to fluff up his feathers from how deep a breath he needed to take to muster the courage, but then followed him outside and out of the Don's reach.

Just in time, too, as while he was still falling, the mayor's torn-off gatling gun burst through the outside wall and wound up lodged against the more solid spot where the wall met the corners of the upper floor.

The Don's second weapon was stuck, but they could see from outside, while backing off, how the walls giving in indicated where the furious reptile was smashing his fists against it. "HEY! WE'RE NOT DONE HERE!" As a last resort, the Don, having climbed upstairs by now, or at least, onto the rubble that now united the upper- and ground floor, and tried aiming and shooting them through one of the holes in the wall with his remaining weapon. But with them having gained quite some distance as is Ralsei using his shawl to protect them was enough to ward off most of the damage from the bullets.

With the phone still running while Ralsei healed them, Pilot went on. "You've got to get out of there now!" The sound of the rocket drive was getting so loud it drowned out everything else. Kris took this as his signal to gesture for them to run further as fast as they could. And within mere moments from there, air currents raged across the area and almost dragged Berdly and Ralsei with them.

With a crash and rumbles that would go on for ages, thew tower had come back and crashed right into the building, digging its way into where Gatore and the three of them were less than a minute ago. Straight through the side of the roofless ruin and it kept sliding and crushing against itself as most of it bore its way through City Hall and its foundation further and further, until the front end of the tower finally came to a halt, several dozens of feet ahead of where City Hall ended.

Gradually, the noise settled. Dust from burst open and dragged-along walls and probably squashed stashes of 'dust' filled the air and settled much more slowly than the rumble. And even when things mostly calmed down, they could still hear the crackle from blocks and bits of pieces of either the ruin, or the tower that leveled some more of it, falling out and rolling off of the heaps.

All while calming down, catching their breaths, wandering along wide, smoothed out tiles. Kris couldn't help but wonder. "Is it over? Is he dead?"

Finally, Berdly could put away those guns and take a look at their new surroundings. "Let's hope he's not in-character, otherwise he might not be."

The area behind City Hall reached very far what must have long been the wall, back in the light world. Even though now a lot of it is covered in rubble from the crash, from only a few metres out of the back wing of City Hall, a long swimming pool stretched across two hundred metres all the way to a mansion and its garden far away on the other side. In the middle, it extended into a large, circular pool that surrounded the fountain they were looking for.

The semi-liquid darkness that flooded up looked so enormous from up close compared to what a distance Kris and Susie had to work from.

"In-character?" Of course Ralsei didn't really understand what they were talking about.

"Yes he...he's an action figure, okay? His character is a bionically enhanced super warrior who ran away from the military to open a bar. And only the broodiest, scummy criminals and mercenaries would visit his bar, because it's really big on bar fights."

"Brawls."

His head dropped a bit. "Yep. Brawls. That's why they're the brawlers. I used to think they were cool when I was really small. But crocodiles, lizards, dragons, other reptiles, they're all really horrible people. If you teach children how great reptiles are, you only set them up for disappointment when school comes around and they actually meet one."

What followed was an awkward silence. Kris stared at Berdly with a hard to discern look. "Kid and Jocks are reptiles too, you know."

"Well then, they'll have to do a lot better to make up for what..."

"LIGHTNERS..." Under whinging and struggling, a heavily wounded and bloodied alligator crawled out of the rubble in front of the side wing he was buried in. His trousers and suit only existed as small tatters, the ammunition belts wound around his cartoonishly muscular chest were long ripped off and he was still covered in bits and pieces from the tower. "THE FOUNTAIN! THE FOUNTAIN THAT WILL PAVE OUR WAY TO THE LIGHT WORLD! I WON'T LET YOU TOUCH IT."

Berdly could only mischievously grin at the Don. "How? You lost your guns." And he drew his own just to be sure.

"WHO NEEDS GUNS IF I CAN JUST RIP YOUR HEADS OFF!"

All of a sudden, with newfound strength and a terrifying speed, he got up and rushed straight their way with his mouth wide open. When he arrived, the three of them jumped back. He snapped right where Kris had stood before. If he had jumped back a millisecond later, he would have ripped his arm off.

Then he tried to grab him with his mouth again. He was aiming specifically for Kris. Then he just ignored Berdly's continuous gunfire and grabbed Kris with both hands to hold him in place. He opened his mouth wide and brought him closer. Either without even thinking about it, or by instinctively knowing what to do, Kris reached into the Don's mouth with his hand and summoned his sword right between the beast's jaws, with its blade pointing right onto his upper part.

Those jaws slammed together in an attempt to grab Kris.

Only that they didn't. Not completely. In trying to bite down on Kris, the giant reptile pushed the blade further into his upper head. He froze and shuddered. Kris immediately heard and felt him wincing and struggling for air. So much so, that he actually let go of him and took a step back to struggle to pull the sword out again. But you could tell from his fumbling that touching the sword only made it hurt even more. "ARGH! AGH KHAY HAR THAGH!" You couldn't even understand what he was saying any more. While the beast stumbled backwards towards the narrow pool of water, Kris, Ralsei and Berdly finally stood together again.

And now, the red light in his chest was glowing again. The strings of glowing power flowed and connected to Berdly's clown pistols. They exchanged a glance and both immediately had an idea of what was going to happen. "So it really did happen!"

Still with the stumbling reptile in his eyesight, Berdly pointed his pistols at him. This was do or die time. If they let Gatore pull that sword out now, he might just kill them after all. When he did point them at his target, two red dots appeared where he was aiming, as if his clown pistols had laser pointers. In multiple locations on Gatore's body, bigger and more slowly moving reticles appeared. Berdly just aimed for the first one he could find, and with the dots on the circle, pulled the triggers.

The circle and reticle accelerated, 'succeeded' and then vanished, but the others were still there, and a new one appeared somewhere else. "Berdly!" Kris shouted. "Smug Barrage!" As fast as he possibly could, with a speed and accuracy only a bird could muster, he aimed for one circle after the other and without thinking, hit as many of them as possible.

Out of desperation, he slipped into a kind of trance in which he wasn't focusing on one point any more and just keeping an eye on the big picture while moving those dots from mark to mark. He fired and fired and fired for his dear life. He didn't count how many of those circles he struck at the right time, but they were a lot until he missed for the first time.

But when he did, all others disappeared, and in every single location on Gatore's body, that he had struck the circle in, his skin bloated and that part of the beast's body exploded. All of them at once. Most of his entire front side blew up in rapid succession, in a smooth wave of very bloody, very gory explosions. Spraying blood and actual chunks of him all around. The combined force launched him back into the pool, where the soon lifeless creature's blood and entrails sullied the already dark waters.

Finally, he was definitely absolutely dead. They could all see his lifeless body with their own eyes. They were overcome with relief, much more so than when they were still a bit on edge just before. Kris was so glad, he let himself drop onto the pavement they were standing on by now.

Kris was relieved beyond measure. He didn't actually expect this to work. He already brought a knife to school at all times. He had to remember to pull it out more often. When he pushed himself back up, and the three of them got a little closer, a creeping cold snuck up their backs. Not in a bad way. It felt as if something about this fountain was really important. "I can't believe it's already over."

Berdly couldn't understand the prince's weird idea of how long they were supposed to be here. "Already?"

"We already made it to the fountain and I...Berdly, there's so much I wanted to ask you about Kris. What does he do in the light world? What's his favourite colour? What foods does he li-"

"Chocolate." He very bluntly interrupted the prince to answer as easy a question as this. "He eats that stuff up like crazy. Make him something out of chocolate and he'll never complain."

Kris wiped the last few bits of dust and alligator drool off his armor. "He's not wrong."

"Still. I hope I get to meet you again."

Berdly grinned. "Try to have it involve less homicidal reptiles next time."

And the prince smiled back. "I'll try."

Something moved, but it was too faint to really register for most of them. "I guess this is it. This is the part where we seal the fountain." The motion from before repeated itself, but a lot more strongly. "So how did you do it last time?" This time, the ground shook enough for none of them to able to deny it. "Geez, what is it this time?" Kris continued to stare at the fountain.

When he was there with Susie, they said goodbye to everyone they met before sealing it. Maybe they had to do that for it to work. With each time that the ground shook, it shook more strongly. And soon, Berdly hasted over to the distracted human. "Kris, this is you isn't it. Did you make a life-sized Susie plush and bring it to my room?"

Something like this was enough for him to snap out of it. "What? I mean no."

Looking back at him, the bird was frantic. A wide stare and strong, cutting gestures accompanied what he was saying. "Then WHAT. In the Angel's name. Is THAT?" Something came crawling up the city. Something big. Something so big, the front of its body was enough to cover the entire city, a lot of which they could see from up here. It was about as big as the cliffs from the ocean all the way up, except that it was one giant entity.

It had purple, scaly skin. An enormous, nigh-impenetrable brown mane hung off its head. Most of its body was covered in a long, dark grey-blueish jacket that was torn as much as its blue jeans were.

In many ways it did look like Susie. But it walked on all fours. It crawled out of the ocean and over the city. Its head still had the length of Susie's head, but Instead of having a face, the front of its head was just a big black hole. Most of its length was just comprised of huge unhealthy-looking yellow tusks and teeth longer than the head itself protruding out of it in random directions. And with drool dripping off of all of those teeth.

When it planted its 'hand' on the city, it must have crushed an entire block. Without moving its head much to do it, it gave a terrifying roar that could be felt in the air and overshadowed any sounds they heard before. Composed of all manner of disturbing sounds within it.

The comfortable cold in Kris' back had long turned into a sensation as though it was being torn apart instead. He just wanted to run away. But there was nowhere he could run where that thing wouldn't catch up. He did however recognize it. "Jaws! It's Jaws!"

Berdly grabbed Kris by what resemblance of a collar his armor had. "So it has a name and you know the name! I knew it, this is your fault somehow!"

It wasn't searching for anything in particular, but it was coming closer and closer regardless and trampling the city as it did.

From various locations outside the city and the outer parts of the city, helicopters and small fighter planes started rising up into the air and firing it from various angles. Getting fired at from the onboard turrets of flying vehicles did startle this 'Jaws', but it didn't do much to repel it. It just began swinging its claws at the choppers, too. "I can slow it down, maybe." Ralsei marched down the pool and away from the fountain."

"What about the fountain?"

The prince raised his hands up in the air and the familiar multicoloured glow appeared around them. "Don't worry about that. As long as I'm the closest darkner to it, it'll work! Seal it!" They saw the same glow manifest near one of the creature's claws. One of its hands was swiping right down at a plane and got caught in the glow. "Hurry, I can only slow her down!"

They quickly got to it. Or at least they would have if they had any idea how. Clueless as to what to do, human and monster stood at the edge of the pool. "So what now?"

Kris could only shake his head. "I don't know, I..." Then he felt it. He felt that same sensation that preceded the glowing of his soul in their fights with Gatore before. And there it was. In bright red light, he saw the red heart leave his own body, glide towards the centre of the black mass. And after a brief flash of light, emit a white light that engulfed first the fountain itself, then the pool, then the area around it, and then everything.

* * *

"Ouch! Argh!" Pain, everywhere. At the very beginning, it was pitch black. Then, expanding as a crassly visible circle with Kris and Berdly at the epicenter, the darkness vanished. Unlike last time with Susie, it wasn't dark after that. The windows were open and the sun was about to rise soon. But with its still faint broken light as he only source of light, blocked off by the window frames, the table and other furniture, they were still pretty damn confused.

Both Kris and Berdly felt themselves getting pinched by sharp, edgy surfaces everywhere. And the repeated buzzing sound from Berdly's alarm clock didn't make it any better. "Where are - wait, wait, wait - ah!" Berdly was right next to Kris at the start, but Kris felt the other toy box fall over, spilling all its contents onto the floor, and apparently, Berdly with it. Under wincing and aching he crawled a little further away and got up to finally reach that light switch.

"Berdie?" The timid voice of a confused bird girl came from outside the door. And slowly, the door opened to make way for a concerned little blue bird girl. In fact this was what really drew Kris' and Berdly's attention to it. They had their old colours back. They really were back in his room. Kris was yellow again and had his sweater back on. Berdly was blue like his sister and wasn't wearing a suit jacket and a Stetson anymore. "Berdie! Where you been?"

The exhausted bird just dropped his face and buried it in his elbow for a second. Then he took a deep breath and said: "File it under 'looking for Scott'."

Her face lit up. "Did you find him?" She didn't remember any of this, did she?

"Yes. Sort of, he's..." He looked around and immediately spotted him. He was nowhere near the toy box. The human-shaped plastic doll was sitting with his lower legs hanging off the edge of Berdly's desk. With Pluma's corresponding Debbie doll sitting right beside him. "Right over...there. How did he get there?"

Finally him and Kris got up and walked back to the table. Pilot, or more aptly, Scott was sitting there dressed fully in his Jevil-themed jester's costume, all the way to the cap. Right next to him, neatly folded together, lay the pilot's uniform he was supposed to be wearing.

"Scott!" The happy girl ran right into his room and grabbed all three. "And you got him new clothes, too."

Her brother's eyes narrowed. "Yes. I guess you could say that." But the most confusing thing they noticed, was neither of the dolls.

Pluma was already gone with her two dolls in her arm by the time Kris was staring at it. Next to where the two plastic dolls were sitting before, lay a card. A playing card that Kris recognized. It had 'J's in opposite corners and depicted a human in a court jester's costume. It was the joker card from the empty classroom in school. The very same one, from its design, down to the little crease in the upper right corner. "Berdly, this...I think that's Jevil. How did he get here?"

What was even stranger was that when he tried to grab it, it glided along the table, away from his hand. When he tried to grab it again, it glided away and as if blown up by a very inconveniently arranged current of wind which he could feel wasn't there, flew up in to the air, spun a circle and then flew straight out of the window. Upon watching all this unfold, he just took his hand down, and stripped his face of any particular expression.

As soon as that confusion wore off, the bird struggled to flip the fallen-over toy box back up and shovel all the building blocks and building block figures back inside, while keeping all the brawler figures out of it. Upon flipping it back up, he discovered something right under it. "Hey, Kris. I believe this is yours."

He handed to him a picture, hand drawn on a loose sheet of paper. And not just a doodle, a pretty advanced drawing, too. It was an inked sketch with some moderately filled in colours. With shading, folds in the clothing, tiny patterns to the skin where the jacket was torn, a lot of the hairs on 'her' head were drawn individually and in strokes far removed from the generic and easy to draw anime hair he expected. Drawing wasn't just a thing he picked up a week ago, Berdly could tell as much.

It depicted the exact creature that was trampling what was left of the city when they sealed the fountain. Standing on all fours on a field of green grass. With a tiny windmill next to one of 'her' 'little fingers' to highlight how enormous she was. Complete with that disturbing lack of a face with bigger teeth and tusks replacing it. And the name 'Jaws' was written on the back of the paper.

He could have made some long-winded joke at Kris' expense just based off this. There were multiple that immediately occurred to him. He grinned at Kris for several seconds with his head raised, seriously considering cracking them all at once. But all he said was. "Look, there's a lot of detail here, I get that. But - I mean the size and the tooth face. It's terrifying. The only genre I could file that in is horror. If you have to draw, please no more horror Susie."

He left it at that. He dreaded to think what it was like in the dark world version of whatever equivalent to a closet Kris had. "When did you draw that anyway?"

"Yesterday?"

"We were together the entire day yesterday."

"We weren't in most of the classes." Now he couldn't resist smirking at his classmate. No wonder his grades were no good if he spent all class drawing purple dragons. He didn't need to say as much. He knew, and he was pretty sure Kris knew that he knew. He knew Kris knew that he knew just from Berdly reminding him of the book from time to time.

He filtered all the collectible figurines that made up most of the brawlers and arranged them into one pile, dumped on top of the familiar action figure. Don Gatore's dark world form really was on-model. At least the version before they blew up his cannons and killed him. Another thing that caught their attention was the carpet in the middle of the room.

On it stood a plastic plane made of building blocks, a book on astronomy written by a famous astrophysicist and that contraption the skeleton had given to them the day before. Kris picked it up and turned it on. It emitted a long, golden ray that extended in one direction. It was the Hawk King's machine, the one that made that bridge that led them to the city.

While hastily tidying up the area at his toy box and removing as many brawlers as he could, in the upper area within the heaps of building blocks and figures in the box closer to the wall - in a location high up in the heaps that he could only assume this was the upper city - was a tea box from the middle east. Made of solid metal and sealed tight enough to require quite some force to open it. It contained a piece of paper, another drawing.

Drawn with a pencil and here and there, where necessary, it was coloured with a crayon. It depicted a man with white fur, dressed in a white suit, with a white shirt and a white top hat fitted onto his left horn through a hole in the hat. Sitting on an ivory throne, leaning with his face on his left hand and a walking cane as white as his clothes hanging off his right forearm by the curved end. It was pretty clear from the fur, the curved horns and the floppy ears that it was a boss monster.

He recognized Noelle's art style from how the clothes were drawn, but the face was indiscernible. She had scribbled over the face with a pencil. Very aggressively at that, the strokes reached all the way to the ends of the sheet. "Fifteen - The Devil?" Kris had walked up to Berdly and was reading the caption at the bottom of the picture.

"It's a tarot card, Kris. It stands for things like self-indulgence, self-pity, being manipulative, feeling like you're trapped or like what you want is being kept away from you by outside forces, or regressing into focusing on earthly pleasures or short-lived entertainment and a bunch of other stuff."

"You know that's Samuel, right?"

"Yes, I got that. Well, Noelle very obviously didn't want this if she threw it in with all the old building block toys. And after doing...that." He circled the Dealmaker's scribbled-over face. "And I don't want this guy anywhere near where I live. You can have him. You're the art expert here anyways."

"You know, since he had Asriel's voice, I could just rub all that out and draw Asriel's face onto him."

"I'm sure Samuel would appreciate that, but I really don't care."

Before they could further explore what could have been what on their trip through the dark world, the door opened and his alarmed sister came back in. "Berdie! It's - it's his Mom! You're late for school!"

"Oh god, the moment we're back in the light world, the light world problems start again. Quick! I'm not going to be tardy because of you." Kris was sort of helpless as to which of the many huge bags to sift through and what to bring along. "Just grab the most important stuff and leave the rest in the bags."

He found where his wider assortment of crayons and all the rulers and pens were he needed for drawing. He put those in his bag and otherwise closed them and brought them down the many staircases. It was a huge thing, carrying all those large sports bags back downstairs. Kris was used to this, but Berdly couldn't help but wonder what on earth Mrs. Dreemurr was thinking.

While Kris ran over to the fridge to grab the remaining ham sandwiches for reasons Berdly didn't question, he passed one of the mirrors and noticed something. He had to take off his glasses to confirm it. He didn't really notice, because they had the same strength, but those weren't his glasses. They were royal-blue-black, with Jevil's clown pistols, yellow spiky teeth, little lappets and yellow bells at their ends engraved and painted onto the frame.

During his trip through the dark world, apparently Jevil left him a little reminder that it had really happened, by swapping his own glasses for a pair of Jevil-themed ones. But time was too short to go back to search for his glasses. And he didn't notice the difference until now, so they were working for him just fine.

It was their last chance to check their bags on whether they had everything they needed. Mrs. Dreemurr's car would be too cramped for any of them to make major rearrangements, so they opened their bags and got to looking whether they had everything. In-between doing so, Kris paused. "Uh, Berdly. Just in case I don't get to ask later."

"Yes?"

Grand assortment of coloured pencils, check, blank and foldless sheets of paper, check. "So all the jokes aside. In the very beginning, before we saw more of the dark world and you didn't really believe in it yet, you kept saying me and Susie were 'wiggling things' in the closet, did you actually seriously believe that?"

Berdly had all the sheets with the answers they went through this whole ordeal to make. "Yes?" As well as all the books he needed for the other classes on the coming day.

"Why?"

Once he reassured himself that he had his calculator, his rulers and other writing utensils, he stopped and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "You know. Birds of a feather."

This had Kris stop his search for anything he might have forgotten. "Birds of a feather? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well you do have a lot of things...nevermind." Kris' mother was ringing the door bell more and more often.

His classmate stood behind, dumbstruck. "What do you mean we're birds of a feather?"

"It doesn't matter it doe-" She was keeping the doorbell running constantly at this point. They didn't have any more time for this. "Let's just get going."

For a second, the bird was worried about her panicking and doing something strange or extreme if they didn't open that front door for too much longer, so he urged Kris to rush downstairs to the ground floor with him. She did seem a bit worked up standing right in front of the door with mere inches between her and the door itself.

In fact, she must have been worked up for a long time, as she had dark rings under her slightly reddened eyes. Did she sleep at all last night? In surprising contrast to that, Berdly neither felt, nor looked tired upon inspecting himself and his new glasses in the mirror. Neither did Kris. At least not nearly as tired as they should have been considering they were awake the entire night. But she calmed down when she saw them arrive.

The slightly open frown quickly made way for a smile when the human followed him outside. "Good Morning, Kris. Good Morning." Nonetheless, loading all those bags back into the car, squeezing back into the car for Mrs. Dreemurr to drive them back to school made Berdly feel like normalcy was returning to his life at last.


	13. Inkheart

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 01

Inkheart

* * *

The ride to school that followed an eventful journey through a modern city in a strange 'dark world', was awkward to say the least. Before she turned the key, Mrs. Dreemurr gave Kris a long lingering kiss on the forehead. "I'm so glad you're fine and well."

"I was only having a sleepover, Mom." That and the humming it came with made Berdly rather uncomfortable.

"A mother always worries." The hand-holding was one thing, that was always a good source for jokes. But how close were those two? Was that normal? There was no way this was normal. During their trip to school, cramped as it was Berdly used what little time he had to open up some of the sheets they had put together for the results on their group project and the paths that led to them.

He would have preferred if they had had another chance to go over them to make sure they were correct. But with sports bags full of stuff Kris didn't need pressing against him from multiple sides and all the distractions that came with a car ride, that was a waste of time. He was relieved when the fresh wind of an opening car door announced that he was free of the synthetic fabric rubbing against his feathers.

He kept it in when he saw - as she did every day - Mrs. D lead her embarrassed son into the school by the hand. He just folded up his arms and walked alongside them. After a long hug, she let go of him at last to head for her class.

Before they were even half-way at the door, Berdly stopped and forced Kris to stop with him. "Wait." When Kris stopped and turned his way, he was met with a very impatient stare. "We're friends now, right?"

He wasn't sure what this was about, so he raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Maybe? Right?"

"So you'd do me a solid if I asked you to, right?" He said nothing. "Right. Could you stop scaring Noelle? Just none of that sneaky grabby stuff anymore?"

So this was what this was about. "But it's fun."

Berdly sighed. "It's not fun." Him acting this way just confused Kris even more, enough to upset him. This was Mr. Smug, master of having laughs and jokes at other people's expense, and now he was telling Kris to cut out one of his favourite pastimes, at least one of the ones from whenever Noelle was around.

Perhaps it was time to take a page out of his own book from when he was in the dark world. Slowly, those corners of his mouth pulled up and twisted it into a wide grin. He slowly raised a finger at the bird. "You've never tried it yourself, have you?

The bird's eyes narrowed. "I can see right through what you're doing."

"So have you?"

"No I haven't. Oh god, you're thinking about doing it right now, aren't you?"

"I'm thinking about frosty hands."

That name however, threw Berdly off again. "Frosty what?"

Without further ado, he entered the classroom. Counter to his expectations, and unlike any usual school day for that matter, a certain easily angered purple reptile was already sitting at her desk in the middle. Tapping with her foot and not stopping when she saw him.

Berdly made sure to look at the black board and away from Susie. His trip through the dark world had left him with a little souvenir that he didn't have the time to replace. A pair of glasses. They worked just as well for him as his regular glasses, maybe even a bit better since they were new. But they were adorned with all manner of colours and decorations taken straight from a very memorable jester that he knew Susie had had a run-in with before.

If and when she saw it, she would surely recognize some of it and draw her own conclusions.

Whistling a melody he picked up on the radio as he strolled over to the windowsill. Noelle was resting on it with one leg, staring out of the window until she noticed him approaching. Noelle was a bit surprised to see them enter the classroom together like this without constantly being braced for banter or something of that sort from one another. Noelle smiled at him. "Good Morning. How did your group project go?"

Berdly wasn't sure how to answer this. "We're still alive. That's a plus." He made sure to take off his glasses, fold them and keep them concealed, and then sat down on the other side of the same window.

She covered her mouth and chuckled. "It couldn't have been that bad."

So far, so good. She got up to walk around her desk and sit down again. "Well we got all of them done at least." Before she could, he pulled out the solutions he and Kris had put together on the previous day and held them up to draw her attention and keep her standing right where she was. "What about you?"

Her eyes darted about in search of something to look at. And there was a lot to see, since she was looking either at him, or past him out of the window. "I'm afraid we didn't even finish half of them." Which meant they didn't go over them several times to check if they got it right either.

"That's a bit unlike you." Noelle was otherwise so thorough. It must have been Susie dragging it down. Maybe Berdly was a little hasty to call Kris and Susie birds of a feather. Maybe he was a lot better at this than she was. And thus a lot better than he gave him credit for. As for Noelle, it could only have been karma, that something now crept up to Noelle right now.

She reflexibly squeaked when all of a sudden, two ice cold claws grabbed her by the right shoulder and the left side of her neck. Like a swarm of large insects running their digits along it, a crippling dread took hold of her body. She froze in place, she panicked. She saw parts of her life flash before her eyes, especially when a torn, gaspy voice bellowed from right beside her face, into her ear, with its maw no more than two inches away from it. " **FRESH VENISOOON!** "

She screamed, it was too much for her not to. She gasped for air, stumped forward, landed with her hands on the windowsill, and turned around to face her attacker. But when she did, it was only Kris. With his hands wide open and raised up in the air after he had let her go.

He was laughing without making much noise, as he had gotten used to doing. But the fact that he was, was impossible to hide, so he made no efforts to. What she wasn't expecting though, was that from right next to her, Berdly was giggling right along with him.

She was dumbstruck. Berdly, laughing at Kris' inane pranks? He was always too aloof for that, but here he was. Beak torn into a grin and shoulders shaking. Did Berdly just distract her so Kris could sneak up on her, and now they were laughing at the whole thing, together? "What has gotten into you two?"

Once the laughter simmered down, her friend sighed and got up to head to his desk. "Okay, you win this one. That actually was a bit funny."

There was little time left for Berdly to spend on Kris' antics or Noelle's reaction to them. Physics, the subject their group assignment was in, was the very first class for the day, too, so he immediately submerged himself in going through the results one more time. Sure, if she wanted that, Noelle could risk a D or an E in case this project was seriously graded, but he didn't want to risk sullying his straight A streak.

He didn't notice what was happening until he heard a faint 'eek' from the table to his left. The blushing deer was trembling before a wandering shadow, the source of which would soon loom above the bird.

In his mind, he told himself to stay calm, and only slowly looked up into the unbearably smelly maw that was breathing down his way. Judging by the look of her eyes and the sideways born teeth, the purple beast above had not slept well whatsoever. An either visibly tired or angry, Susie slammed her hand down on Berdly's desk. "Nice glasses." she whispered with a menacing tone. "Where'd you get them? Ripped them off a clown?"

For a moment he was concerned. Then it occurred to him again. She was one step away from getting expelled as it was and except for Temmie and Kid, the entire class was here. And it wasn't whether faculty was too inclined to let things slide. She had long made herself unpopular with staff and students alike and a lot of people would have loved to see her go. She couldn't lay hand on him in this situation.

His beak deformed into a wide smile. "Funny you would say that. Yes. A clown gave them to me."

"How? Where?" She bent further down over him and he inched further down to keep his distance.

She knew. It was undeniable now that she knew. It was getting a bit much. Maybe he shouldn't try his luck too much after all. Time for his exit strategy. Good thing he had a decoy set up to get rid of her. "Well it was really tricky. I'm not sure either. I never would have made it without Kris' help. Maybe you should ask him."

And there those unclean teeth vanished behind those unsettling lips and she rose back up. It was working, she was backing off. With how much she was anticipating showing Berdly the dark world to gloat about it the day before, he figured she would be upset upon realizing that Kris visited the dark world again without her. But now, that was no longer his problem.

As he had hoped, she went back to her seat, in front of the human's, and slid around with her chair. She placed both her elbows on his desk and sat upright enough to reach a clearly taller height than him. "Hey there." She still sounded menacing, but a lot less so now that it was Kris she was talking to. "You got something interesting to tell me?"

Kris, in the middle of setting up all his drawing utensils that at least for today, he had no intention of putting away or swapping for anything, froze in motion the moment she came his way. And when she asked him, his eyes darted up to stare into hers for a few seconds. "Yes?"

She wasn't backing off though. "Shoot."

What in the world was she thinking? They were in a classroom full of people that would raise eyebrows if he started talking about falling into magical dark worlds through closets. He just began stammering. "Well..." He just had to stick to things that he could say without sounding crazy. While not moving one bit, his eyes stared to his right, onto Snowy. "...doing that project together, it did get pretty dark."

When he realized from where Susie was looking, that she didn't get the hint, he subtly nodded to his right, and then his left, where Catti and Jocks were. "...then we listened to some music and watched a dance." Immediately upon hearing this, Berdly leaned to the left of his chair, turned around and glared his way. Even behind several layers of vagaries, he still didn't want Kris talking about his closet.

Kris just ignored it and stared over to Noelle. Susie was starting to follow his eyes and picking up on what he was telling her. "...then things got really difficult though. We almost didn't make it. But in the end, we went through it all guns blazing."

Those vertical pupils of hers widened just a bit. With her elbow still on the desk, she brought one hand closer and pressed one claw into his chest in her usually painful manner. "Empty classroom, after classes. Him, too." She pointed at Berdly with her thumb.

When she took that claw back, Kris sighed and nodded. Her hips stirred with a faint chuckle, and she grinned down at him. "Weirdo." You could tell how comfortable she was, with how she refused to get up to turn her chair back to the front and instead, shuffled around her own weight leveraging herself on Kris' desk. With no regard for how loud she was being or how she was misaligning his desk in the process.

Just like on the previous day, when Physics class was about to start, with Berdly having his and Kris' fully worked out answer sheets ready and on his desk, their clumsy teacher came nigh-stumbling into the classroom.

Once class and teacher were done greeting each other, and she was about done placing the things she needed for class on her desk, she clapped her hands and sighed. "I've got good news - or uh, bad news depending...I've looked over yesterday's new group project sheets and uh - I'm not sure what she - I must have made some mistake."

Oh goodness. He hoped this didn't mean what he suspected that it meant. "The pro- the problems in your worksheets were way too many and some of them way ahead in your material. It wouldn't be fair if I graded them - so uh...joy!" She haphazardly spread her arms and tried to elicit applause. There was a cheer coming from a few desks. "I mean if you actually tried to solve all of those I'd be happy to look them over. But if you didn't, it's no big deal."

It was then, that Berdly either purposefully, or as a knee-jerk reaction, lost all hold in his muscles and dropped the side of his head onto the open-and-ready notebook on his table. Kris - at least on the outside, didn't react at all. He just remained completely still. Even though he felt the same way as his project partner felt. The all-nighter, all that work, searching for his sister's doll, overthrowing a foreign ruler in Berdly's toy box.

Possibly unlike the rest of class, they made all this effort, but were denied the fruits of their labour. And thus, their struggles were in their entirety invalidated. It felt a bit like finishing the kind of video game that was a fad for a time, where the hero would struggle his way towards working miracle after miracle, each greater than the previous one and save the world, only for the story to deny him the girl in the end. All, as he was explained later, to appeal to a misled notion of 'deep storytelling' or to pander to contemporary politics.

You would play it all the way to reach the end, or in his case, watch your brother do it, and wind up asking yourself: Why did the hero bother doing any of it? He should have just watched the world burn. At least he would have gotten some relaxing entertainment enjoying the show.

Kris was already considering spending some time drawing instead of paying attention to class on this day. At this point he wasn't intent on wasting a second on school material at all any more. Mrs. Alphys collected what little answer sheets there were to be had early on and was surprised enough by Berdly's and Kris' effort. Especially when Berdly was asked about it and said that Kris contributed as much to it as he did.

Surprised enough to leave the human to his own devices, which he welcomed. He had a wide assortment of tones for each colour ready, too. His Mom was at least to a harmless degree, aware of his and Asriel's hobby and had packed all the colours he needed in her excessive preparation for last night's sleepover.

He already knew of a few things to draw, so he got right to it and concentrated on that. The first thing, to warm up, was a comparably simple sketch of the cliffs. With those back-and-forth wiggling pollen-like things he and Susie saw in the dark world, the smooth, but uneven cliff walls, and Lancer hiding in a shadow up high and shooting spade symbols at them.

The second thing, was to erase what he had to, in order to undo what Noelle had done to her discarded 'The Devil' card, fill it again with what parts of the background he had to erase, and then complete it very carefully by giving him Asriel's face. And imitating what little of her art style he could discern while he did it.

And to match the character it depicted rather than the person he was modeled after, he gave him an evil grin and a tired, dismissive gaze in his eyes directed straight at the viewer.

He had another thing in mind to do after giving Samuel his face back, but it had to wait. Like all classmates that had their desks in front of each others', Susie sat only a step away from the front of his desk. And even from where the imposing dragon sat, she towered high enough over him that he would have had to bend to the side to see most of the black board. Like he always had to, sitting in the back like he did.

And today, occasionally, at far-apart moments, she would slowly turn around and sneak a suspicious glance his way, as if she was checking whether he was still there. After the first two classes, she stopped. Even beyond that, she looked a bit more relaxed in general. Where did she think he was going to go? Then again, it didn't matter.

When the coast was clear, he took a book appropriate for the current class and big enough for his purposes. He placed it standing upright by its edges to ward off unwanted attention from a certain univited onlooker. That gave him at least enough time to cover his next piece should she turn around or get up.

The reason he was paying enough attention to Susie to pick up on all these things, was because the next thing for him to draw, was her. Not Susie herself the way she sat there, but the way he remembered her from two days ago. The way she looked in the dark world. With the way her scales looked there, the unusual hair colour, the clothing.

He spent more time getting the 'Devilsknife' right than any of the clothing. The curved, scythe-like axe Jevil had given her upon disappearing. And he was all the more happy to not have been caught by the easily provoked model to this work, in spite of him having gotten carried away and focusing entirely on the drawing most of the time. Had she turned around in all that time and flipped or looked past the book, who knew what her outburst would have entailed.

As for the two to his left and right, Jocks and Snowy, throwing them off was easy. They long ceased paying attention to him since the other two pieces weren't interesting to them and they had no way of connecting her to the color scheme he was going with, so all he had to do, was to keep something more inconspicuous on his desk and right on her face.

He took a lot longer than with the other pieces, and made more of an effort in adding and redoing details, but in the end, he looked upon his work with satisfaction. In the end, relieved that nothing bad had happened in the time it took to make it, he turned it around.

And like with all his drawings, he took a pencil, found a location where it would either not show on the drawing itself, or be hidden by the dark background, and with added strokes to each line to make it stay, wrote the name he gave it on its back. He called it 'Axe'. Once he was done and Axe was safely stowed away, he gave in in to the fatigue that unexpectedly caught up with him without a hint of shame, and spent the rest of class sleeping.

When the bell rang and the last class was over, Berdly made sure to pack his things and get out of here. Fast. But he wasn't fast enough. By the time he got up, the dragon was no longer behind him. She was in the hallway, leaning against the lockers with her hands in her pockets hair hanging over her eyes.

But her body and head were unmistakably angled to face him. If he did something extreme like open the window to climb outside that way, she would dash his way. The only way out was to join the crowd of leaving students and navigate past her that way. Unfortunately, that plan didn't work out either.

While he was marching between Catti and Snowy, she simply forced her way to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hey there." She smiled. "Wanted to talk about something before you go." He tried ignoring her and pulling himself free, but her grip on his shoulder was so strong that he simply couldn't.

With narrowed eyes, he stared up to where he expected hers. "You're not going to let me go, are you?"

She paused for a bit to wait a little more for the students and Mrs. Alphys to move along further, before she opened her mouth and showed him her teeth again. "What do you think?" After a few more seconds of listening and watching the others leave the classroom, she let go of his shoulder, only to grab him by the throat pulled him back. "That's an interesting pair of glasses. And I want to hear all about it."

"Stop - stop!" In his struggles to break free, Berdly didn't notice that she was holding him tightly enough to carry him and merely keeping him at his original height. When she did lift him up, he stumbled and lost hold of the ground. His struggles annoyed her enough to drop him again and hold him by one hand. She wound up dragging him across the floor by his calves. "It's a long story, Susie."

"I got time."

Grasping onto her hand with both of his own, he struggled for air. "It's a love story."

"Could be political drama for all I care." Susie was the kind of person that had a radar. And Noelle was the kind of person that wasn't on it. So neither the dragon nor the bird really paid attention nor noticed the doe watching aghast as the big purple reptile dragged her struggling captive to the desk right behind her own, and pulled two chairs closer to sit next to the slumbering human.

The bird kept protesting between wheezes. "I'm pretty sure there's some political satire in there, too."

She just grunted right back. "Wouldn't have guessed otherwise with nerds like you two."

Once she was seated comfortably on her chair, the wrong way round so that she could run her arm around the lean in front of her she reached for Kris with her other hand and flipped over the book to drop on his face. "Morning, sleepyhead. Wish I could sleep well like you. But I hear you've got a good story to tell to help with that." She chuckled in her usual disturbingly low-key manner. "Seriously, sleeping through class. What a freak."

Now at last free from her grasp, but well-knowing he couldn't up and leave, Berdly talked back at her again. "You do that too, you know."

"Shut it, nerd!"

For a moment, the human gave off a disapproving groan. Then he remembered who it was that had just done this, stopped, and instead raised one finger in a gesture meant to say to give him more time to wake up properly. By the time he was done rubbing his eyes and opened them, Noelle had already snuck out of the classroom.

Barring him, Berdly and Susie, all of which sat around his desk, it was empty. He kept running his hands down both sides of his face to help himself wake up for good. "Would you believe me if I said we were looking for a plastic doll, fell into the dark world, beat Jevil and he gave Berdly a pair of guns that turned into a pair of glasses?"

Those yellow eyes kept staring at him, but ever so slightly, her expression eased up. She turned around her chair so she could lean back with her arms folded up. "I wouldn't like what I'm hearing, but I've seen weirder stuff. Keep talking." And so he did.

He began retelling the tale of everything that happened to them up to this point. Starting with their group project and Berdly's sister looking for her doll. Then Berdly finally agreeing to opening his closet, only to fall through its floor and for him to go after him.

When he got half-way through their first encounter with a darkner and was describing what Berdly immediately recognized as Christmas Town, the bird cut into his story. "Can't we skip that part, it's not really important."

"It's still part of the story. It's where we meet Jandsome!"

Susie began to grin enough for her teeth to show. "Now I just want to know all the more."

Kris looked back at her and shot her a gently slow pistol hand. "That's exactly what I keep thinking every time I ask him about it."

"Screw you two!" Berdly usually wasn't vulgar enough to have to censor himself like this, this closet of his really struck a chord with him.

Without saying anything, Kris opted for a compromise and told Susie that they were 'people' that danced and made music without mentioning that they were flowers or red roses. And after that, his narration went a lot smoother. He told her a long tale about shark- and reptile punks and bikers, dressed up as formally presenting gangsters, overconfident magical eagles.

And a police force that couldn't enforce the law, because one of said gangsters was the new mayor of the city and made sure to shut down any attempts of them to do so. Put in place by 'the Knight' himself, possibly the same one he and Susie vaguely heard of in the Card Kingdom.

And of course, the thread that held it all togther, a tale of two lovers who were made and meant to be with each other. Who were happy, until one was about to push what they had a little further, and ran away out of sheer fear of how much it could devastate him, should his beloved against all odds, reject him. Only that he didn't truly vanish. He merely hid his sadness behind a mask made of pranks and jokes and japes at the expense of other people.

And yet from behind his disguise, acting smug and aloof to hide what lay behind it, he joined them as they accompanied his beloved, and wound up leading her on a wild goose chase until, after going as far as fighting and besting a homicidal clown familiar even to Susie, Janice broke from their approach.

And instead of their aimless routes, she sought to make a deal with the devil himself. "LUXON?" Susie near shouted while bracing herself with her hands clasping her chair immediately upon hearing that name. Then she noticed how she was coming across and laughed it off. "I mean that's a weird name. So what about him?" Kris went on, but Susie was only half-way listening at this point. She had to control herself enough to not grasp her friend's shoulders instead of her chair.

So that slimy creep Dr. Luxon was pulling one on her after all. He was real. It wasn't a dream. Not entirely at least. Kris very carefully rummaged through his bag, looking out not to make Axe visible at any given time, while searching for Sam, and then placed him on the table.

When he did, she was absolutely sure it wasn't a dream. That was him. Sure, he had a face now, where he had a torn-and-twisted something before, but Kris admitted that he made that change during class. But she recognized him by the clothing and the demeanour that his pose implied. That was definitely him. That was the snarky wannabe-psychiatrist from her 'dream' last night.

And upon hearing the story progress, past the destruction wrought by the giant alligator as soon as Mr. Luxon opened the floodgates, when they got to Berdly's sister just disappearing and asking an all-knowing hologram how and why, things began to make more sense to her. So you could just dream your way to the dark world.

But your thoughts determined where you went. But if Dr. Luxon and his hotel were in Berdly's toy box, no wonder that Samuel was so confused that Susie wound up in there. Now she was just as confused and intrigued herself. But for now, she just figured that it was because she wanted a dark world adventure, and Canyon City when Kris, Ralsei and Berdly were there, was where there was one to be had.

And soon after that, the lovers were reunited, and after a final act of chaos on the part of the jester, they faced off with the mayor and brought him to justice. "So I only just managed to make him stumble back a bit, and then that red soul thing happened again. It made Berdly use his Smugshot a lot of times at the same time, so I called it the Smug Barrage. Berdly used it to kill him, and then we made it to the fountain and sealed it."

That was at least where Kris was trying to end the story. Going by the look on Berdly's face, his classmate didn't quite agree. "Kris. That's not the whole story and you know it. We covered the closet, so we're not skipping past 'Jaws'."

Kris froze. The anticipation of a predator who had just caught its next meal filled the dragon's eyes. She didn't know what 'Jaws' was yet, but if it was juicy enough for Kris to leave out on purpose, she was interested. "What's - uh - what's 'Jaws', Kris? I'd love to hear that one."

He just scrambled to somehow walk his way around it. "It's - uh a giant creature with big teeth. But by giant, this time, I mean she's - she's several times as big as the whole city."

The anger in Berdly's voice over including the cliffs that were his closet wouldn't let up. "I know for a fact you have her with you. A picture says more than a thousand words, Kris. Why don't we let her take a look herself?"

He froze again, and his eyes moved over to Susie, who didn't seem intent on letting up either. In fact, she shook her head. "I'm not letting you get up from that chair until you showed me what this 'Jaws' thing is." While she said this, his breathing accelerated. A lot. And other than that, he didn't move. He just stared at her. "Sheesh, calm down." She hung her head down a bit and grinned. "Come on, it can't be that bad."

It did nothing to calm him down. "Come on!" When she reached for his bag, he obliged and opened it himself to pull out the drawing and then very, very hesitantly place it on the table. "Oh." Upon giving it a look, she immediately knew it. Not the drawing itself. But she immediately knew what inspired it.

Any smiles and grins slowly faded out of her face. A creature so huge, its little finger dwarfed a windmill next to it several times over, with nothing but teeth for a face. Imposing, and yet familiar. She recognized herself by her colour, her jacket, her shirt, and her hair. Her face stiffened up at the thought that this was her.

She thought it was funny at the time. Now she regretted it. She really got to him a lot more than he let on, didn't she? This was what she must have looked like to him, when she brought him up to her teeth and threatened to mangle him. "Did you - did you make this?" He wasn't looking at her, at least not as far as she could see through his hair, but the pace of his breathing didn't ease up. He was trying to not look afraid.

That was Kris. Always the freak with the weird face she couldn't read. Most of the time. He had the kind of face he could with, but she could tell how agitated he was. It was different from she pressed him against the lockers and all he had for a reaction, was to lazily hang his head down. "You did, didn't you?"

She swallowed her own spit. She felt like apologizing. She wanted to say she was sorry. But that wasn't her. That wasn't 'Susie'. That was okay with Kris, but Berdly would have only gotten the wrong idea.

She snorted. Maybe another time. For now, she had to stop that awkward silence she let settle down on them. She pretended to burst out laughing so much, she had to hold her stomach. "Looks like you went all out with this one. Look at the detail! Got to say, you really captured my smile." She jokingly bore her teeth at him.

That was enough though. "But...let's get serious. So you guys are telling me that if we ever make it to the dark world again, as long as that piece of paper exists, a giant monster that looks like me but several times bigger than that big city could attack us any time?"

Both boys shrugged. "Looks like it."

Now with a much more eased-up mood again, she nodded while pouting. "Anyone else think that's a problem? No-one?" They nodded. "Problem?" She leaned forward. "Solution." She grabbed the drawing, crumpled it together, put it in her mouth and ate it. It tasted - it was hard to think of a way to describe it. But even paper drawn on with ink and coloured with coloured pencils as dinner still beat having nothing for dinner like she expected to.

Well, nothing and trash. It wasn't food, but at least it wasn't literal trash. "There. No more giant Susie monsters to worry about. That a deal or what?", she mumbled with some of it still in her mouth. And thus, that easily, Jaws was no more.

Once she shock wore off, perhaps to appease her, perhaps for another reason, Kris ducked again and pulled up another drawing to show both of them. A much more simple sketch. "Hey!" For Susie at least, it lightened the mood immediately. "That's Lancer up there!" It was a shot from the cliffs during Kris' and Susie's adventure. It was only Lancer's silhouette directing down the spade symbols that passed him, but the silhouette was all she needed to recognize him.

"It's the cliffs. Berdly... You know, the supply closet right here in the school."

The bird's eyes narrowed. "Okay. I'm starting to get the picture. I guess those are the purple walls." Then his finger drifted up to point at a lengthy object with a sphere attached to its top that was tilted to the side, a curved line along the tilt indicating movement. "...those would be the things that wiggle.."

He looked up at Kris with a grin and then moved on. "It looks a bit like some type of fungus to be honest...wait what's that?" He was pointing at a blob with something that could vaguely be construed as a face with closed eyes and a closed mouth.

This time Susie picked up on it. "You just touch them and they..." She followed this up by making an exploding motion with her hands. They were running out of stuff to talk about. "Hey, Kris. Got any more stuff to show?" He shook his head. One Susie drawing was more than enough. Besides, he didn't want her to eat Axe, too. "Right." Slowly, silence took hold between them again. "So where does that leave us? What did we learn about the dark world from this? You know - other than stuff I already knew."

Berdly was a lot less nervous by now as well. He was resting with his arms on the desk and no wrinkles or other signs of making a face. "For one, closets. We've got to believe in the absurd here. You and Kris fell into the dark world through a closet. Same goes for me and Kris when it happened to us. Closets are the common denominator. So closets can be used as portals to the dark world."

"So wherever there's a closet, there might be a way to the dark world."

"Yep. Then dreams. If Pluma was in the dark world while she was just dreaming, then others could dream their way to the dark world, too."

Susie started laughing nervously. "Okay. Didn't think of it that way, but sure."

"As long as you're there at night at least. Then there's art. If Jaws was any indication, any drawings or other pieces of art show up in the dark world as what's on them. Not even just what's really there, but what's supposed to be there. In the end of the day, Jaws was just a detailed sketch with some very faint colouring.

But the Jaws we saw in the dark world looked very, very real. Jacket looked real, skin looked real, hair looked real. So they're not just some ink or graphite projection. It's whatever the artist was picturing in their mind that becomes real in the dark world."

"Okay?"

"That's about it I think. Knowing all that is useless of course. At least I hope it is, because there's no way we'd stumble onto three dark world portals, right? If it can just be any closet, the chances have got to be tiny. It was interesting while it lasted." He sighed and got up.

Susie had heard everything he could tell her, so there was no reason for her to force him to stay any longer. "But it's something we can put behind us now. If it's just any closet it can happen with, let's be realistic, there's no way it'll happen a third time."

Susie slowly lowered her head upon processing it. She tried to laugh it off. "Yeah, who knows. Maybe." But when Berdly was behind her, her smile began to fade. "Hopefully." She looked back up at Kris. "Hey." She subtly nodded towards the exit door. "You can go, too if you want. I'm not keeping you." He hesitated, but he followed suit.

When he already had gotten up and was walking past her, she changed her mind, reached for his shoulder and kept him in face by force. "Wait." She brushed her hair aside to look him clearly in the eyes. "I don't know if it's going to happen again, but if it does. If you find another portal to the dark world. Don't just go off on your own. Tell me. I want to come, too."

He froze for a second. "How?"

"Oh, right." The realization coaxed a twitch out of her. She laughed. "You couldn't if you wanted to, right?" She got a pen out and tapped at Kris' bag to get him to pull out a piece of paper. She wrote down her phone number. "Here. There you go." Not her cell phone number, she didn't have one of those. Her home's landline number. It wasn't much, but at least there was some way of communicating. After that though, they said their goodbyes with a smile.

* * *

It was already strange, passing by Noelle on his way outside, but Berdly was a bit more put off when he realized how desperate to catch up Kris was, running after him and down the stairs outside the school building. It was strange, but it was Kris. Strange was part of the program with him. It was best to just brush it aside. "You saw Noelle in the hallway too right? She wasn't listening in on us, was she?"

While catching his breath, his classmate pulled off his bag. "No idea. I wanted to show you something." He began to whisper. "I didn't want Susie to see it. Because - you'll get why."

Hearing this only earned Kris a look of disapproval. "If you don't want her to see it, maybe not show me right here." He subtly pointed to the west of the building, where the window in the back of the classroom was. "She's right over there, you know?" Kris luckily saw what he meant. They agreed to take a seat at QC's Diner instead. They just had Kris order a glass of water to justify taking seats there. "So what is this thing you want me to see?"

Kris sifted through his bag and placed another drawing on the table. Bigger than Jaws, Noelle's discarded 'The Devil' card or that little sketch. Bigger and much more detailed. So thoroughly coloured, it was as if the drawing was digital, but he could feel on his feathered fingers that it wasn't. It had smooth shading and close attention to detail. "Geez, you really went all out on this one."

He already knew as much after seeing Jaws, but now he was absolutely certain that this book on drawing dragons wasn't lying around somewhere unused. Kris must have been doing art as a hobby for a long, long time. The drawing depicted a predatory creature. Judging by the snout, a dragon.

Her arms and overall any skin that laid bare, glowed against the dark, spade shaped arcs in the background in bright magenta. Black leather bands with golden spikes adorned her strong upper arms and forearms. Her eyes barely visible under the enormous dark red mane. She wore a vest so long, it was more like a coat. Even though it obviously wasn't a coat, because it didn't have any sleeves.

A big golden, heart-shaped belt buckle held together her too wide, dark red trousers, the lower half of which were in their entirety stuffed into black boots that reached half-way up to her knees. She had such a grin on her face, she was practically glowing. Putting her imposing, yellow jaws on display.

And she had something like a scythe in Jevil's blurple-black-lime colours and with one of his signature bells hanging off a lappet on its back. But its blade was too short for it to be a full-fledged scythe like you would expect a farmer to use, and the blade and grip were too long for it to be a sickle.

"Is that...", he finally asked. "...is that a brawler?" The first thing he thought of, were the reptilian and aquatic punks, bikers and other thugs they met on their trip through the dark world. They all had attire resembling this. "A female brawler with a scythe?"

Kris' expressions were always an enigma to the bird, but he could tell that he was upset from how long he was staring at him before he finally answered. "No, it's Susie."

Well that was disappointing. He was really impressed for a second there. "It looks nothing like Susie." At least that explained why he didn't want Susie to see it. "I mean I get it, that is definitely her face. But everything else, the colours, the..."

"It's the way she looks in the dark world. You weren't blue there either."

"Hm." Berdly pouted. "Okay." That explained the clothing and the messy mane, too. The messy mane in which so many of her hairs were drawn individually. He must have put a lot of effort into making this. Much more than with Jaws. All the more so, everything about this 'Susie' he was looking at was off. Not by much. Barely at all, but everything was off by a little.

He was pretty sure her arms weren't quite that wide. Even if he assumed the perspective it was imagined from to be Kris' height, she seemed a little too tall. Her mane was just as messy as Susie's but he could have sworn it was a bit longer than hers. As for her proportions, her legs were ever so slightly wider even through the awkward trousers, and her chest a teensy bit more imposing.

This 'Susie' looked little bit stronger to him than the real one, and she had a modicum of attractiveness where the original simply had none as far as Berdly could see. To best put the overall impression he got into words, this 'Axe' was an in every respect slightly improved version of Susie. Not an accurate depiction of what she really looked like.

But he didn't want to be too mean, so he decided to skip bringing up most of that and instead pointed to the right of 'Susie's coat. "What's that?" It was the tip of her tail, curved in a way in which you only could if your tail was long and developed enough for you to be able to consciously move and bend it around. "What's with the tail?"

He just gestured onto the picture with an open hand. "She's a dragon."

Berdly rolled his eyes. "Yes, but her real tail is so short, half the class isn't sure if she has one. I have no idea if she has one. It's definitely not as long as this." He paused to look back and forth between the drawing and the person who made it. "I mean you sit right behind her in class. Did you actually look at her when you made this?"

Kris' head moved a bit back, and he began to look down. Not at the drawing, just generally down at the table and not at Berdly. "No. Not really. I sort of got carried away and just drew from memory."

He made THIS from memory? He took coloured pencils and made something with them that was so sophisticated, it might as well have been concept art for a film or a video game? If it was there, which it obviously was at this point, why didn't Kris put any of this resourcefulness into his school work? Putting this into perspective, the bird tried reading the expression on the human's mouth.

Then slowly, he raised his head just a bit and smiled. "Hm, okay. Either way, whatever you do, don't destroy it or anything. I can see you put a lot of work into this one. Who knows, even if Susie found out, you might actually walk out of it alive." Leaving it at that, Berdly got up from their niche and snickered all along the way out of the diner.


	14. Sin and the Dark

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 02

Sin and the Dark

* * *

What in the world was Noelle hearing those three talk about? She had stayed near the doorframe and listened to the entire conversation Susie, Kris and Berdly had had after school. She was mostly waiting to spend time with Susie to show her her tarot card set. She listened in because she wanted to know what was so important and related to those three in particular. What about talking to Kris and Berdly was important enough for Susie to forget about her?

She expected some kind of blackmail or another project or maybe Kris and Berdly helping Susie with the discarded project's problems. Instead, she eavesdropped on a lengthy conversation on light worlds and dark worlds, fighting come-to-life toys and playing cards, special magic attacks, comedians with godlike powers, people that fit into medieval fantasy stories meshed together with fifties or late fourties noir and all of it being talked about as if it had really happened.

What was this? It must have been a game of some sort. Some kind of advanced tabletop or other role playing game. But could it? Would Susie actually play something like that? Would Kris? Maybe it did with Berdly, but this didn't seem fitting with either as far as she knew them.

But she didn't hear them ever differentiate themselves from the characters they presumably played if that was the case. Unless they were in-character throughout this whole conversation. Or they 'were' the characters and just 'played themselves'.

She didn't have to eavesdrop. She knew that. She could have just walked in and asked what they were talking about. But she was scared. What would she even say? Where would she start? She would just scramble to find the right words and Susie would have gotten more and more impatient over her interrupting them. Well at least their sudden get-together eventually came to a conclusion.

And there was more that added to her unease. Not only was Susie willingly spending time with them after school, but judging by how she dragged Berdly back in against his will and surprised Kris while he was still asleep, she was forcing them to stay. But time was running short. Kris and Berdly had already rushed past her through the hallway.

She clasped onto her bag, closed her eyes, opened her mouth to take a deep breath and then made a conscious effort to take a more solid stance. She had to find out what kind of roleplay this was, but getting involved in that was for another time or another day. For now, there were her tarot cards.

She sneaked closer to the door, ran her hand along the grip. Careful to not make any sudden moves, she pushed it open just enough to meekly peek inside through the gap. Her first attempt at saying hello only came out as a squeak. Susie was lying with her arms behind her head, on a makeshift lounge chair made up of her own chair, Kris' desk and the back of Kris' chair. "Hello?" That was enough to cause her to stir.

She immediately raised her head and spun it around to see whether it was a teacher. When she saw who it was, she nodded in her general direction. "Oh, hey."

Noelle wasn't sure what to do. "I...uhm..." She paused to push the door a little further open and at least walk inside. "I wanted to know if...I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd get caught up talking with Kris and Berdly for so long."

"Why, what's up?"

She blushed while trying to get to the point, and then waved it off again. "I - I'm sorry if I'm taking up your time, you probably have somewhere to be."

"Not really. Just spit it out. What's going on?"

"I promised I'd bring my tarot cards today. I have them with me."

Now, Susie was at taking those shoes off of Kris' desk at last and actually sitting upright to turn Noelle's way with her chair. "Oh right." She laughed. "I totally forgot about that."

She took a nearby chair and shuffled to her desk. "It's all right. This 'dark world' business sounded very exciting."

The one eye not covered by Susie's hair sprang wide open. "You were listening..." she whispered. Then she caught herself whispering and spoke aloud. "Ah I mean uh - how much of that did you hear?"

Oh no, what was she doing? What if she was going to have to explain to Susie that she was eavesdropping on them, and why? She basically already admitted it. All she could do now was try to brush it aside. "Oh goodness, it all sounded so confusing. You were all so in-character - but as yourselves? I'm not sure if I understand what exactly it is. Did you start playing some kind of roleplaying game, or...wait is it one of those ay ar gees?"

"A what now?" What a relief. Susie did look a bit more disgruntled, but at least she managed to change subjects away from 'I kept the door open with a doorstopper and eavesdropped on your entire conversation'. "What's an ay ar gee?" Noelle tried out stammering a haphazard explanation on what an alternative reality game was, comparing it to a more complicated scavenger hunt with fictional lore that you pretended was real, all to discover secret after secret until you eventually solved it all.

"Yeah - yeah, something like that. We tell each other stories with riddles and try to solve them afterwards. I mean it's better than being bored all day right? So I thought why not?"

If Noelle's face wasn't trembling before, it was now. Whenever she wasn't talking, she was trying to hide her buck teeth behind her lips. "It - it sounded very exciting for you. I'd love to partake in it."

Susie backed off slightly and laughed. It sounded forced. "I'm not sure it works that way. It's - "

Noelle realized it. It felt a bit like something was pulling her heart out through her back, but she had to face it. Susie wasn't comfortable with this. So it was better to rip that band-aid off. Before the dragon could be pushed away any further, she interrupted her. "I'm sorry - forget I asked. I'm sure you want something to play among each other."

Hearing Noelle voice her willingness to keep out of it did make the dragon relax and lean back in her chair. Within a moment's notice, she had her cool back. "Hey, that's not what I mean - it - it's not something you seek out - it happens to you. Kinda. I'm not sure."

She didn't really know what to make of that. "That's more...confusing than enlightening." It was enough to get a chuckle out of both of them and lighten the mood.

"Yeah, I guess." She took a moment to think. "Hey, what if there was a way for you to partake in it after all?"

The weight on her that being excluded put on her grew lighter upon hearing that. "There is?"

A grin began to form itself along those big jaws. "It's like a scavenger hunt, right?" The soon terrified doe froze when she saw her classmate reach forward and grab her shoulder. "Hey. You got tarot cards, right?" She meekly shook her head. "They can tell the future or something like that, right?" Noelle tried to say 'maybe', but it only came out as a squeak.

"How about we see if we can cheat our way to some answers?" Noelle didn't like how she was looking at her with those big teeth on display, but the look on her face showed that Susie really liked the thought of what she was proposing. How on earth could she say no? So she just stayed frozen, shaken only by the narrow motions of herself shaking her head until she was let go.

Once she was though, she quickly got to work. She opened up her bag, pulled out the little box with a tall pile of cards. They weren't as smooth as the industrially produced ones you could buy in stores. That was because they were thin, white slabs of cardboard, printed-on on both sides and then cut out with neatly rounded corners like regular playing cards. And then wrapped in plastic tape to make their surface smooth. Flipping through them and shuffling them raised some eyebrows on Susie's part. "That's a lot of cards. Did you really make those yourself?"

Noelle smiled with pride. "Yes. Every single one. The minor ones are mostly based off of other tarot designs. The major ones - they're more personal."

"But why? Why would you make all this?"

It brought back memories. Not bad memories, just saddening memories. "They were for - I wanted to show them to someone else. I was waiting for a sign for when it was time but...I waited and waited and waited, and it never happened. I was hoping eventually - the time just never came. Please, let's leave it at that." She tried to clear her mind of it and smile as if Susie had never asked. "I just misread some signs, that's all. Don't worry about it."

She focused on shuffling to get those memories out of her mind. "So what is it you had in mind? I was going to just show you some normal four-row or four-card spreads, but if you want to use them for this 'dark world' thing, I have to know what you want to ask while I'm shuffling."

"That's easy. Let's start with the obvious one. So there's this thing, let's call them 'portals'. Berdly thinks they're random. I don't think so. There's got to be some logic to it. Ask the cards what the logic is. What does it depend on where portals show up? What do I need to do to get to the dark world again?"

"All right. Let's see what we can do." Once they were both more focused on the task ahead, the mood between them relaxed a little bit again. After showing Susie how to shuffle them in a way that flipped some of the cards over, she had Susie shuffle them as well. "So. Let's see what the cards say. What is the logic behind those portals? We'll go with three cards."

She drew drew one card and placed it on the table. "This is the first - eek!" For a moment, Noelle contemplated pulling the card back and calling this whole thing off. But the dragon was staring at her with this one eye, expecting her to follow through. She couldn't go back now, so she just went on to place it down. The first card depicted a man sitting on a throne. A young boss monster from the looks of it, save for his fur and horns being pitch black instead of snow white.

The grinning goat was almost completely naked. A plain loincloth being wrapped around his hips was the only thing that made this image slightly less awkward to draw or behold. The white bow tie really only highlighted his bare fur even further. The throne he sat on had strange, swung shapes to it, and the way the cushion behind his head just 'hung' down its lean as two wide 'strands' seemed all the more bizarre at first.

Upon looking more closely, wasn't an actual throne as such, but just a group of naked human women posing closely together to form the semblance of a throne for him to sit on. With the backs of two of them forming the throne's back and the hair that hung off the backs of their heads, making up the cushion for the horned figure to lean on.

His right hand was wide open. On its upward palm, he was holding the loose ends of two metal chains that led to collars wrapped around the necks of a human man and woman who - stripped bare like everyone else - stood in the left and right corner of the picture. "The Devil."

Noelle was blushing so much, Susie could have seen it through the fur, if she wasn't preoccupied with staring at the picture and scratching one lower corner of her head. "Hm. I think I've seen his face somewhere - wait, Kris sai-" She connected it. If Doctor Luxon was the 'Devil' Noelle threw away, then this was the final 'Devil' she settled with for the cards she was showing her now. "Is that Asriel? Did you make a card of Kris' brother?"

Noelle gnawed on the tips of her fingers. She struggled to come up with an answer. "I - uhm - a lot of boss monsters look similar. I suppose he's bound to look a bit like him."

Her classmate was pretty damn certain this meant that that was Asriel though. "Right." She leaned back and folded up her arms. "So what's it about?"

"The Devil means you're limiting yourself. The ends of the chains are loose because you could walk away from what's holding you back any time if you wanted to. He means that you're getting distracted or otherwise indulging yourself in bad ways, and that it's going to have a bad outcome in the long run."

"Okay, weird. But I'll take it. So what's next?"

Noelle drew the next card and placed it on the table. In its background, a giant human stood on all fours on a cloud and reached to the front with a large five-pointed star in his hand. "The ace of pentacles." The pentagram emitted a golden aura and in its light, flowers and other plants were growing far above the surfaces they were sprouting from.

"It stands for new beginnings. If you feel like you failed to get what you want in the past, you might have a chance to start over. Turn over a new leaf. Or it means that an opportunity will appear. An opportunity to get something you want, and if it does, you have to reach for it. But you have to make actual efforts to pursue it if you do."

Susie kept leaning against the back of her chair, but she felt herself grow a little tense. She felt...something. She felt like this card stood for exactly what she wanted. But she felt anxious, too. What if this opportunity showed up and she didn't recognize it? What if she brushed it off as something else, and simply missed it? She didn't want to think about it for much longer. "Right. Sounds nice. What next?"

"Lastly would be..." Noelle pulled the last card off the pile and placed it on the table next to the other two.

The background of the picture was a bedroom with dark, ebonwood walls and a heavily decorated bed frame with a big mattress on it. In front of it stood a familiar figure. A short human with a green striped shirt, brown hair and yellow skin. His hair was so long and hung over the front of his face so much, that you couldn't see his eyes in the shadow they cast.

"Uhm." With a smirk on her face, Susie looked up and down between the card and its apparent designer. "I'm pretty sure that's Kris." The Kris on the picture had the index finger of each of his hands hooked into his mouth and was pulling it open to both sides with them while stretching his tongue out at the viewer.

At the bottom of the picture, embedded in a spot left open by the frame that adorned the outer edges, were two zeroes and the card's name. "The Fool." She tried to suppress it, but Susie couldn't help but chuckle at this for a while. "Why is Kris 'The Fool'? Now that's just mean."

"I didn't expect you to care."

She was a bit flustered upon hearing that. "What - I mean - I don't. Still, that's kinda mean."

"I'm sorry. I'm sure he'd understand." Noelle took her hand off her mouth and adjusted the card a bit to be more neatly in a row with the others. "The Fool stands for optimism, youth, wanting to embark on an adventure. For new beginnings, or taking on some new big task."

"Adventure. Now we're talking."

"Yes, except he also means that in such a new adventure, you need to be careful. There are dangers lurking. At least they're all pointing upwards, that's a good sign."

The dragon looked over the three cards and folded up her arms. "So what's that all mean? I get that there's a theme about starting adventures going on here, but I don't see anything about how."

"I'm not sure either."

They were quiet for a while, until Susie's doubts broke the silence. "You sure that 'Fool' card isn't just supposed to mean Kris?" Noelle looked up to follow the purple claw's movement as it pointed over at not-Asriel. "So this guy..." Her hand shifted over to point to the ace. "...is going to make something unexpected happen..." And then the Fool. "...around Kris?"

Noelle just shook her head and smiled. "No, I'm sorry. That's not how it works. The cards always stand for abstract concepts, not actual people. If I had to interpret it in one sentence, I would say that..." She began following the cards with her finger in the same order. "...if you indulge yourself, an unexpected opportunity will present itself. A chance at a new adventure."

"Right, if you say so." She didn't seem too convinced. "So what's going to happen? If I follow the trail to the dark world. Or if we do. Ask the cards what their opinion of the future is."

Noelle nodded. She already was in the process of reshuffling the cards and soon handed them back and forth so that both did the shuffling at some point. Then she began drawing cards. The first one showed them an archaic military camp, with tents set up in the background. In the foreground, a grinning human with short hair was sneaking away with several swords, away from a weapon rack with more swords that was clearly missing the ones he was carrying. "It's the Seven of Swords."

"And what does it stand for?"

"Deception. Or trying to sneak away from an uncomfortable situation, but it has mostly to do with lying and tricking people. Or maybe theft? Someone is lying to you about something and they aren't doing it with the best of intentions. Or they will lie to you in the future."

Susie shrugged it off. She didn't really believe in any of this holding true anyway. It was just a bunch of randomly drawn cards after all. Besides. "Could be worse. I feel like that's already the case all the time."

They both began to laugh. "That's actually - you know I'm honest with you right? You can trust me."

Susie didn't like Noelle's attempts at getting through to her. Either that, or she wasn't buying it. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's move on. What's the next one?"

The next one showed them a robed young human man with a blue spiked helmet with a smug expression on his face, gesturing to his curved table with open hands. On it, in front of a purple curtain, stood ten golden goblets, each one shiny enough to sparkle. "The Ten of Cups! It stands for happiness and fulfillment. It would mean you're getting everything you want and have a happy family life. Except..."

Unlike all the previous cards, this one was pointing with its bottom to Susie. "It's reversed. That means so is the happiness. Now it just means broken bonds, broken families, trouble at home...I mean, it can't mean me. Do you...do you have trouble? At home I mean?"

"What? Nah! You got the wrong one. That or the cards are just wonky." They were both laughing. It was awkward on both sides. And even after that, they were both visibly and audibly nervous.

Noelle figured it was best to just move on like before. She drew that third card. "Oh dear." It depicted the rainy centre of a big city, with roads and skyscrapers to both sides. In the middle stood a building that outdid all its surrounding buildings in height. A golden plaque in the shape of a capital 'T' adorned the top of the building, which was being struck with a lightning.

Below the plaque, neon lights formed a simple cartoon image of a smiling human, an extra hand pointing to the face with its thumb. "The Tower. Upright, too. Don't worry. It's often not as bad as people think, it -"

"So what does it mean?"

She avoided eye-contact with the dragon at this point. "Disaster. Something big is going to happen. Something that changes a lot. And not for the better. Oh no, please not - I mean."

The dragon was losing her temper enough to raise her hand, but then managed to hold her open palm Noelle's way. "Stop, okay, stop. It's just a bunch of cards. All in good fun. No need to take this seriously. But we could just follow up on that. Why? Why's the disaster happening? See what they say about that."

The doe needed encouragement to shuffle the cards. Susie didn't expect Noelle to be someone that actually believed in all this stuff. Then again, she should have known better. If playing cards and cards like these were people in another world that you could talk to, them communicating with you through what order they're pulled off a pile in wasn't that far-fetched either.

But even if that was what was going on, how were even the dark world versions of those cards supposed to know the future? That made no sense. She was getting swept up in Noelle's reactions and overthinking it. They were random cards, nothing else. "All right. Let's see. Why is the disaster happening?"

The first card just featured two humans standing on a road with a green field in the background. They were dressed in gambesons and were facing each other with not too friendly expressions. They were crossing swords - possibly in battle.

"Two of Swords. It stands for balancing out, making a tough decision - it usually revolves around some sort of conflict. Two forces are in conflict with each other. They can be two priorities in your mind, or two people, or your choice between two people, or two groups of people - either way, neither path involves the other path being followed through."

"Okay? What forces?"

The second card featured a human woman on the stone foundation of a building, but with no building on it. Her throne was in the middle of a rocky landscape. The surrounding area was barren, covered in stone. There were mountain ranges peeking up from the piles of gold glowing as brightly as the woman's crown that littered the ground around her.

Several of those coins were faced towards the viewer with the five-pointed stars engraved on them visible on all of them. "The Queen of Pentacles. She stands for financial security, stability, having wealth in abundance, fertility or potential to make a lot of wealth - generally - it means you have a lot of money right now."

"That'll be a no. Doesn't sound - "

They were interrupted when the door opened again. This time, the unsure face looking in through her slightly foggy glasses, was that of their teacher. "Ah. Hi. Sorry - I uh - I forgot something here. Won't take long." It was just Alphys. No-one Susie had to worry about seeing her doing weird stuff with cards. Once she saw that she could, the lizard rushed inside and behind her desk to open one of the drawers in the back and look for something inside it.

Without a word, her two students agreed to proceed. "All right." Lastly, the picture that followed was that of another woman on a throne with no throne room to surround it. She had blonde hair, was wearing distinct, dark red lipstick and had a stern look on her face. There were more big wooden rods with leaves planted into the ground around her, in an upright vertical position towards the viewer.

"The Queen of Wands. She stands for great fertility or potential. But this particular card actually does mean to pay attention to a woman in our lives. One with bright hair if she's a human. But a lot of monsters don't have manes like us, so the bright hair could also refer to the colour of her fur."

She had a bright coat, too. She was about to emphasize that maybe, Susie should pay more attention to any female monsters with brighter colours in general. But the giggling teacher spoke up from behind her desk. "Hehe - or her scales. Paying more attention in class always helps." The dragon shot her teacher a disapproving look, but she was too fast in ducking back down to search for whatever she was looking for to notice.

It was probably best to switch subjects before Alphys got any wrong ideas. "What's with those weird wands anyway? Aren't wands supposed to be all..." Susie went on to make gestures resembling a conductor waving around his baton.

This tickled out a much more sincere chuckle from her classmate. "Those are different wands. These are fertility symbols. Wands are always all about potential and possibilities. They're staves that stand for fire or fertility, that you stick into the ground. They're not as much magic wands as something like Asherah poles. Desert mice used to put those up to worship a deity."

"'Asherah' I'm guessing?"

"Yes. She's the goddess of fertility, motherhood, air and earth, grooming, child molestation..."

"Wait, what?"

Noelle stared at the table in shame and mumbled: "There's a reason they don't teach the occult in schools. It's usually obscure and hidden behind several layers, but Asherah actually inspired a lot of fictional characters, even all the way to today."

Alphys, who seemed to have found what she was looking for and was already on her way out, stopped and giggled upon hearing this. "Yeah. Like Vashaara."

Noelle and Susie turned and bent sideways to face her. "Who?" It seemed both of them didn't know that name.

Alphys stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Vashaara?" She stared back at her students, apparently expecting them to know this name. "Come on, Vashaara? Queen of Sin? Nothing? She's fro-" She stopped mid-sentence, so as to expect them to know what she was talking about.

After waiting for a little longer to see if anything occurred to Susie and Noelle, she sighed. "I guess it's from before your time. Forget I said anything. See you tomorrow. I hope." Without another word, she left the classroom. Whatever 'thing' Vashaara was from, it obviously wasn't important enough to be worth the time or the embarrassment to explain it to them.

"Well regardless of what that was about, there are a lot of other characters that take inspiration from her. I can immediately think of one from a video game. But there's a lot more than that one. Even if only for entertainment, people still reference her."

Susie kept staring back at the door to make sure their teacher wasn't coming back. And once she was, she relaxed. "I totally forgot this isn't the empty classroom. Mind if we take this there, before anyone else shows up here?"

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you want to know more?"

"It's all just random cards, anyway. None of this is an actual answer to anything, right?" Susie's mind was made up. Enough for her to get up and get ready to move. "Besides, if you're up for it, we can keep this going in the empty classroom."

Noelle understood that there was no keeping her here. "All right. Though I was at first hoping we could do a normal tarot reading. Like what your fortune says about career, love, social life..."

"Yeah, how about no? It already got way too weird." Well, those were clear words. Words that shut down the conversation while they both got packed up and left for the hallway. "But if you're up for it, we could play some more card games." With a renewed smile, Noelle nodded.

She never got through to saying the line, like her father told her to, but their time was enjoyable nonetheless. Playing simple card games was a lot more relaxing and lighthearted than the tarot session. And time went by much more quickly while doing so.

Eventually though, an alarm on Noelle's phone went off. A reminder of the time. Susie may not have had anywhere to be, but Noelle did. When she packed up her cards and got ready to leave, she was in so much of a rush, she felt she had to apologize to Susie for up and leaving so quickly. And still felt bad about it all the way until she was outside.

The afternoon was already blending into the evening when she left the school. She didn't have that much time left to visit her father before it was time to see where she'd spend the night.

Why did this feeling of anxiousness soften up her spine? Dad was still going to be there when she arrived. There was no need for the unease she began to feel. And yet she felt it, the further she tread away from the safety around Susie and into the cold outside. The rows of houses she passed, felt apathetic to her, even though she knew they were buildings and didn't 'feel' or 'think' at all.

The growing shadow the hospital walls cast, only made them all the more imposing. And inside, nothing had changed. The nurse was sitting there again, the piano was gathering dust with each day and no-one present was surprised at Noelle's visit. Which was relieving. Everything was as it was yesterday. More confidently than yesterday, she opened the door. "Who's - hey! There ya are."

The moment he saw her hand, Dad greeted her. "Come in - " He had to cough mid-sentence. With a slight gurgle in his cough that Noelle could have sworn wasn't there yesterday.

When Noelle opened the door far enough to look inside, her heart felt like it shrank just a little. And with her back turned on her, Sarah was standing at the sink and washing a used glass. Just like yesterday, the overgrown mouse monster was wearing a suit that spoke of deadly formality, not something you wore when visiting a friend.

Without even saying 'Hi' to the startled doe, she rushed past her with the glasses and wine bottle she must have brought with her. "Sa - Hello?" But she was already gone. She didn't so much as look at her.

"Don't mind her. Busy woman, like your mother. It's like she said, we should be thankful she even came to visit at all." Her father, with his head nestled into the cushion on the raised end of the bed, made no efforts to raise it. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he seemed weaker than before.

He had to cough again. "Even brings me some wine every time. Doctors say a little wine's fine. Come here." With this encouragement, she stepped all the way to the side of his bed and held her father's hand. "So how was your day?" He was looking her right in the eyes and Noelle didn't know where to start. "Did you say the thing?"

She was flustered enough to forget about any worries and covered her blushing face. "I don't think I ever could. But I spent another afternoon with her. Played card games and read her fortune."

He lowered his eyelids to only cover half his eyes. "Did you read the cards on where her love life will take her?"

He was always so direct. Noelle had to laugh for a bit before she could answer. "No. She and a few - friends have some new club or - activity. I'm not sure how to describe it."

The inner ends of her father's eyebrows trailed down closer to his eyes. "That nerd guy better not be in the mix here."

She chuckled. "Yes. Yes he is. But it's okay. Today it was just me and Susie. There'll be other days like that."

Her father raised his hand to run it through her hair, closed his eyes. "I'm sure there will be."

She stared at him for a while, before she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek and left quietly. She was confident that he was well on his way to recovery. Until she was already halfway out of the hospital and heard him cough louder and for longer than it even took to hear him from out here. And that gurgle was still there.

It was just the treatment or his recovery. His immune system giving him a hard time, so he'd be better later. He was getting better, he had to be.

She prayed that he was. To whoever was still willing to hear her.


	15. Little Girl Blue

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 03

Little Girl Blue

* * *

She couldn't do it. School was over, she had showed Susie her tarot cards and she had visited her father for the day. But Noelle didn't want to risk going through the same thing she did yesterday. She couldn't ask her mother for the key to her home. It was too much yesterday, it was too much today. And she couldn't keep relying on Catti day in day out either. Which was why she planned ahead this time.

She had taken the time to make for at least a chance at not having to. With his disappearance for an entire day's worth of school classes, followed by the strangely excessive group project, she was sure that Kris was more in need of help with school work than ever. Or at least, she could argue as much with him and Toriel. She had prepared problems to walk him through based on the material in yesterday's worksheets.

And because she knew his mother was a bit squeamish with visitors or letting people spend time with Kris in general, she made sure to ask her for permission to come for a visit, several hours in advance, while still at school with Susie. And as she walked up that last road towards the woods, she didn't just see that house come closer, she could feel it.

Here was to hoping it would work. When she stood in front of the door, she couldn't bear raising her head far enough to even see its upper end. And she hesitated ringing the bell for quite some time, until she managed to push herself enough to do so.

It appeared Toriel was only a few steps away, from how quickly she answered the door. "Oh, hello." She was speaking with a lowered voice and slowly moved aside. "Why don't you come in?"

She nodded and thanked her. "Uhm..." She sat down at the edge of the couch. "I wanted to - wait. Kris is at home, is he?"

Seated back in her comfy chair, the smiling woman nodded. "Although I would rather if you stayed down here for a while." She was still speaking with a lowered voice, and gave Noelle disapproving looks when she didn't. When Noelle asked why, Kris' mother put her book aside and got up. She trod through the living room as softly as a big creature like herself could, with paws like her own and gestured Noelle to do the same.

They snuck up the stairs, Toriel opened the door to her son's and Asriel's room very slowly. He was lying in his bed, fully dressed, with his arm wound around the cushion. Sleeping. Even the doorbell didn't wake him up. Once Toriel's suspicion was confirmed, she closed the door again and led Noelle back downstairs.

Once they were back on the soft seats around the unused television, Noelle began talking again, now keeping her voice down the way Toriel did. "I - uhm - I wanted to know if...because of my father's situation, things are a bit complicated. I'd like to know if - if..."

"Please, no need to worry. Whatever request you might have, I'm sure it won't be too much."

"I wanted to know if when me and Kris are finished studying - whether I could stay over for tonight." Toriel stared at her in silence. She could feel the pressure from here. She opened her bag and began searching through it. "I - I uh...I have everything I need here."

She pulled out an old, small bag with a zipper, filled with unused toothbrushes, tooth paste and other bathroom utensils she needed if she stayed overnight with someone else, usually Catti. "I promise I won't be a burden, I mean we've all known each other for long enough and I can cook for myself if that's..."

Toriel was gesturing her to stop and when she did, she spoke as softly to her as she did before. "There is no cause for concern. You're a sweet, diligent and orderly girl. Of course you can stay here if you like. As long as Asriel doesn't need his bed." Hearing this took a heavy burden off of Noelle's mind. She got up for a second and thanked her several times until she realized that she was perhaps showing more excitement than she should have.

While she was still standing, the older woman got up as well. "Just, please. He just visited another classmate. I was hoping to have a relaxing evening at home today. I would much prefer if the two of you stayed here. No trips outside or the like." This was all she wanted.

As long as she remained here, she had a place to stay. Toriel continued while she made her way to the kitchen. "If it were someone else, I would worry they might be too much of a distraction, but with you, it's quite the opposite. You're part of the family." Noelle followed her and when she began cutting vegetables, her weary guest offered to lend a hand.

Toriel trusted Noelle enough to agree, too. At least for a bit. While they did, she began to ask the relieved doe one thing after the other. What this assignment was that seemed to prompt Kris' spontaneous sleepover at Berdly's, she asked how Noelle's father was faring, how she was doing at school.

When she noticed Noelle getting uncomfortable upon being asked what those 'complications' were that had given rise to this visit of hers, she luckily didn't see reason to further inquire. Most of the things Toriel brought up, she was prepared for. She expected them and came here with a basic idea what to tell her if asked each one. But eventually, the teacher surprised her. "And - before you head upstairs..."

She paused right after pouring oil on a pan and smiled at her. "Pardon my curiosity, dear. I admit when I see you, Kris and the others in the hallways, I tend to watch all of you a little more closely than I care to admit. You seem a little down as of late. Even before Rudolph's condition. Is there something on your mind?"

Yes. "No. No worries."

"Is there anything you would like to talk about?"

"No, really. There's nothing." Noelle appreciated it. Toriel didn't have to show concern like this. She closed her eyes and shook her head. There was. Well, there used to be. But that was in the past. Signals were misread, when she expected something to happen, when she hoped it would happen, nothing did.

More than enough time had passed for her to be sure it never would. It was a misunderstanding, a big misunderstanding. Nothing else. She was foolish to think it was more than that. Even so, it was in the past. Now Susie was all she could hope to fill that void with. Besides, there was no need to involve Toriel here. Considering her religiosity, that would have done more harm than good.

To her relief, this sufficed for an answer and she could make for sneaking up the stairs to check whether Kris was awake by now. He wasn't. Still fast asleep with his head facing the window. Did he and Berdly not sleep at all last night? Did they really go all out finishing this ludicrous assignment and then spend the rest of the night putting together this 'dark world' story they then told Susie as part of this game they were playing?

What were they thinking? How completely irresponsible. But that was Berdly as she knew him. Getting so carried away by something that caught his interest, he'd stay up all night if she wasn't there to stop him.

Careful not to touch him, she sat down on the side of the bed and placed her hand on his shoulder to give him a faint nudge. "Kris." It did nothing to wake him. Perhaps whispering and barely touching someone wasn't the most effective way to wake someone up. When she increased the pressure and slightly pulled back and forth on his side, she was startled when she realized she was eliciting a reaction.

He shifted and flipped around, ultimately facing the wall and mumbling to himself as he did. "No, Gobbler, no." Eventually, she pinched him with the solid tips of her fingers. She had to do it several times until she finally saw and heard the signs of him waking up for good. When he opened one of his eyes, he hesitated and shook his head. Truthfully, he was actually a lot less tired than he should have been considering he and Berdly had stayed up all night. With a lot of excitement to fill that, too.

A glimpse at Asriel's alarm clock revealed to him that he had slept for less than an hour until Noelle woke him up. "Kris, what were you thinking? Sleeping at a time like this. Does this have to do with that thing you two were talking about with Susie?"

The moment she said that, he twitched. Was she listening when that happened? He thought she had already left. Then again, she still was in the hallway when he followed Berdly outside. She seemed to register his shock, as she backed away and threw her hands off. "No need to worry. She explained it to me."

Wait, she did? No, she would have been more rattled. What exactly did Susie 'explain to her'? "I'm really surprised about you lately. Making friends and getting Berdly to join on making up silly make-believe stories, too?" She laughed. She was doing this thing again where she seemed to know him so well, she responded to what he was thinking without him saying anything. "Susie, too of all people? Just what happened to you?"

On one hand, her having him figured out so well always unsettled him, on the other hand, he enjoyed having someone understand him without him having to go out of his way to talk to them.

By now fully awake, he looked up and straight at her. "Well. Since you heard." He got up and balanced off the edge of his bed to not drag his shoes along the middle and reached up to his lower shelf.

Under a green crayon, up on its flat back tip, lay the drawing that apparently once was to become a card. Samuel, although Noelle probably didn't know him by that name. He placed the crayon aside but kept it standing so it wouldn't roll off and sat back down to show her. "What is - what is - I mean how did you find that?" A faint glow was shimmering through the fur on her cheeks as she realized what this was, and what he had done with him.

All right, now he had to think this through. "We found it in Berdly's room." She said Susie 'explained it to her', but if she had to ask where he found Samuel, she probably omitted the part where they traveled to another world where her art came to life. He just had to be careful not to say anything that conflicted with what Susie told her.

"Yes but - did you do this?" She took it in her own hands to give it a closer look. "How did you - how did you know it was him?" He looked at her with confusion. "How did you know it was Asriel?"

He had nothing elaborate. "A lucky guess?"

"Really? I mean I guess that makes sense. There aren't that many Boss Monsters around here after all." When he checked where she was looking, she was avoiding eye contact. She didn't believe him. Well, at least she would move on to something else.

"And the card - I mean thank you. I appreciate the effort. But I already made a new 'Devil' long ago. I don't need this one any more. But look at - if you made this, you drew other things, right?" He shifted away from her and looked off to the side. She responded with a calming gesture. "It's all right, you don't have to show them to me. I didn't come here for that anyway. I came for this."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a familiar, green and loose leaf binder. "I thought you and Berdly would take yesterday's assignment much less seriously. Well, at least that you wouldn't complete it. So if you need help with our homework, I'm here now. And I prepared some more stuff for after that."

Homework and extra work that wasn't even homework. This wasn't the recuperating afternoon and evening he was hoping for. And now that she was already here, he couldn't turn her away either. So without further complaint, he put Sam back on the shelf, took the lamp off his unusually wide nightstand and turned it sideways so that it could serve them as a table.

They didn't get too far. Not long after they started, Kris' mother opened the door to announce that dinner was ready. Noelle was merciful enough not to press him further on anything, including the dark world. And after a full-fledged meal, they went on with school work. Mom regularly popped by to offer to bring them something, sometimes just to take a peek.

And he didn't pay attention to that first, but he gradually noticed that she kept coming by and made sure that the door to his and Asriel's room was always open at any given time. The reason he picked up on this to begin with, was that her visits became more and more frequent as time went on.

The hours went by, and towards them finishing up with all the extra material she prepared for him, the pie for the three of them was done as well. Of course Mom made pie. She always did when they had someone visit. And a lot of the time when they didn't have anyone over as well.

"Again..." Noelle went on. "I can't say often enough how thankful I am for you to have me stay over." She had told him that she was sleeping In Asriel's bed while they were doing homework. It cleared up a lot of confusion on why she was still here at eleven o'clock, in the night.

"Of course. You're always welcome with us. Besides. Kris has been more sociable lately in general as well." She placed a hand on Kris' and smiled at him. "I'd love to know what I have to thank for this."

"For one, I think we discovered we share a hobby I didn't know of." Oh no. "Oh, come on. Don't be like that." What was she doing? "Come on now, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little praise. You know what?" She didn't seem to pay attention to whether or not he agreed to this and got right up from the table. "No need to even get up. I'll fetch it." She was going to show Mom Sam. She was going up the stairs, leaving him helpless at the table.

The human swallowed. All right, it wasn't as if Mom knew anything about the dark world. All Kris had to do, was stick to his story. Noelle said something about make-believe stories. If he just went along with everything relating to the dark world being a story that he and Berdly made up, he was going to raise some eyebrows, but it was still more believable than the truth. He accepted that he was possibly to retell the story and waited for her.

He listened intently to accompany her along every step in his mind. He heard every step up the stairs and with a lingering sense of discomfort. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. He heard her grab the door handle and turn it. "Uhm..." Then she stopped. He wasn't sure why. Something changed, but he wasn't sure what that was.

He looked towards the stairs. Something was different. Wasn't the light on a second ago? Wait, it sort of was, but it was somehow replaced with a pale, very faint light. "What happened - is it..." He had an inkling. No. It couldn't be. It wasn't that a pale light replaced the yellowish glow of the upstairs lamp at the ceiling. It was that the hallway upstairs was getting darker and he could see it from down here.

Without a word, he got up. He was sure he was wrong. He was most likely wrong. "...wait, it's not...he-" He ran up the stairs, ignoring his mother's protest, and doing so only confirmed his suspicion to his horror. Behind the open door he was running towards, was nothing but a black void. And the entire hallway was darker, the same way it was when he and Susie opened the supply closet door, or when Berdly opened his closet to look for Pluma's Scott doll.

When he reached the doorframe, he grabbed it by both sides and stretched his head through it. In the dark, right below him, he could see something fall. Her. It must have been her. The door to his room opened as a portal to the dark world and Noelle fell right through just like Berdly. And to make it worse, below, it wasn't just blackness. He recognized the waves by their silhouettes. She was falling into a sea.

He had no room for hesitation. He didn't take time to be careful or slowly inch his way into jumping after her. This was Noelle that was falling down there, not Berdly. He stretched his hands through the door ready for a dive and jumped right through head first. Again, the instant shock from feeling through the rippling air currents, how fast he was falling, filled him with tread and immediate regret over his reckless decision.

He could tell from where her screams came from, that he sped past her. And then came the impact. Hitting the water hurt his hands so much, he couldn't feel them any more, and the pressure of the water crushed him from all sides as he dove in. The rushing water pressed against his ears and made hearing anything impossible.

He couldn't breathe, and the cold water only made the pain even worse. But he was conscious, and holding his breath paid off. With a few strokes upon turning himself around, he was able to swim back to the surface and immediately struggled for air when he did it. The uneven water almost crashed right in his face.

Noelle crashed into the water, before he had time to look up to where she was. He took a deep breath and dove right back into the water. Even in the pitch black void down there, he could see the red and blue glow coming from her direction and knew where to swim. She was struggling in panic, but she wasn't swimming anywhere. He had to go back to the surface to catch some air on his way, she was too far away not to.

After reaching her, he swam up to her and approached her from below with his arm open to get hold of her in this voluminous red robe she was wearing all of a sudden, and push her to the surface. She was gladly thin enough for that to work. Even when he had pushed her back up here, they were far from out of danger. But he was still glad when he could gasp for air and heard the hysterical doe do the same.

She was out of it. Struggling randomly in his arm. It was like Rudy had said. She was scared out of her mind. And unless he found either land or something to hold onto soon, she had every reason to be. It was so cold. They wouldn't last for too long, at least he didn't feel they would.

Whenever she wasn't incoherently screaming or struggling for air, all she said were random repetitions of 'help', his name and something like 'what'. Hard to tell most of the time, since she never held onto a thought for long enough to utter a word without stuttering and interrupting herself.

The desperate human did what he could to find something to escape to. The closest he saw, was a tall, red metal structure, built above the water and mounted on more metal supports that went into the water, possibly all the way to the bottom of the sea. This was his only hope. If they could get to that, there was a chance that they would make it. All he had to do, was force his way through this.

The trip was long, and physically exhausting to him all around. Every part of his body was in pain. He didn't even bother to ponder too much how he could swim in his armor, he was just thankful that he could. The further he made it, the more Noelle's struggles subsided.

The interrupted single-syllable words she tried uttering before, made way for her starting to ask him something, and stopping mid-sentence each time, either because they had to dedicate everything to catching their breath, or because those smaller waves that crashed onto and through their faces, turned their swimming into short dives through the water.

This trip was endless. At times, it felt like they weren't getting closer at all. Sometimes, he was convinced of it. He just had to keep going. It was the only way. And eventually, they got close enough that he could spot a ladder that ranged from into the water, up to where they could climb up the red wall. Not long later, they actually made it to the ladder at last.

Noelle had long defaulted to trying to ask Kris what all this was, but never actually finishing the sentence. He was so happy to at long last reach for and grab one of the bars and hold onto it. When he pulled Noelle closer and pressed her against the ladder, she understood, hesitated, but eventually began climbing up.

When he had guided her far up enough for there to be space for him to follow her up, he was so glad he could get out of the freezing water. The more of it ran off of his body, the more the cold left with it. It was still there, but it was moving towards becoming bearable. At last, it was time to take a moment to look around.

Even from here, past the supports, there was land in the distance. He could already guess that their way out of here was probably not on this place, they were going to head over there sooner or later. For now, it was best to climb up.

At the top, the ladder led right into another ladder that led down for a bit. Onto a single, platform surrounded by walls as red as the platform itself. As much of the area as was possible, was encompassed by a dome made of broad iron bars.

The top was covered in leaves and debris here and there to make for a ceiling, especially towards one corner. In which there was a makeshift house, built of loosely attached wooden planks and a straw ceiling. The planks were all arranged unevenly, nothing seemed to quite fit, in some places, the measurements were so mismatched, they outright left holes in the corners between the outside walls and the planks making up the flimsy attempt at a ceiling that it had.

Whoever built this, was either in a hurry, had little care for stability or things fitting optically, or both. It was surrounded by heaps of all kinds of things, such as bows, garden tools, rotten fruits, furs, everything.

"Kris...Kris..." He was already thinking of going to that house when his trembling friend grabbed onto the shoulder covered in his cape. "Kris what's going on?" Noelle wasn't in panic anymore, but still visibly scared and confused. Her cheeks were burning enough for it to shine through and she was near tears. "Please!"

"We're in the dark world."

That only unsettled her even more. "But - but it was a story. You and Berdly made it up!" Well at least now that the cat was out of the bag and Noelle was seeing this bizarre place with her own eyes, he knew what Susie ran with to explain their conversation away.

"This can't..." It must have been obvious even to her, that they were no-where near home anymore. Everything looked fundamentally different. They could see this platform, and the silhouettes of the waves in the ocean down below, but like the last two times, they couldn't really make out a source of light that explained all this being visible. Even here, the only sources of light were the torches along all the walls of that house on the other side of the dome.

And he and Noelle stood in bright contrast to this darkness. Noelle was wearing a bright red coat, with patches of white fur aligned along all the edges of her. Her fur was deep blue, her hair dark green, and her antlers had the same shade of red here, that her robe did. "No...no..." She began to cover her face and look down. "This isn't real, this is some dream! A strange dream! I shouldn't have had pie just before going to bed!"

He wasn't really sure what to do, so he just stood next to her. Then he remembered what worked with Berdly. But this wasn't Berdly, so he had to try not to startle her too much. He reached out to grab her shoulder with one hand, and tighten his grip to get her attention. "Noelle! Noelle, listen." Perhaps running with her idea of what this was, was a good way to ease her into it.

After she calmed down a bit, he looked at her right in the eyes. "Yes, this is a dream. Maybe. Maybe nothing here is real. Maybe I'm not real either. Everything will be all right. By the end of this, you're going to wake up in Asriel's bed and it will be like none of this happened, okay?" He got through to Noelle enough for her to get a hold of herself.

She nodded, but at this point her red nose was already running. Out of a pocket in her coat, lined with white fur like so many other parts, she pulled a handkerchief and wiped her nose with it. Now that she had calmed down, he pointed towards the house. "I want to know if there's someone over there." For how shoddily it was built, that house was pretty big. It only had one story, but it reached pretty far and it was too tall for Kris to make out where it ended towards the back.

He was about to walk over there, but noticed that Noelle was still a bit too hesitant, so he grabbed her by the wrist - which proved a bit more difficult due to the soggy sleeve of her robe and the still drenched winter glove she was wearing on her hand. He stopped to pull off the glove, take it in both hands, and twist and squeeze it to dry it as much as that immediately did and repeated this with her other glove.

Even so, she was still trembling. So was he, if he was honest. Leaving the water was an improvement, but he was still freezing. Now he just wanted to reach the warmth of those torches all the more.

As they came closer, someone actually came their way through the empty doorframe at the front. It was a grown man - an elderly human with a long grey beard and long, unkempt hair with leaves and dirt caught in it here and there. He was wearing several layers of tattered rags, each one loosely dangling and looking out of the one covering it.

The old man was supporting himself on a wooden stick the length of a staff. With his other hand, he was lighting his way using a torch, which he held by the handle at its top. It was neither electric, nor a torch using fire. Inside its casing, there was just a six-pointed star, the yellow light of which was a lot brighter than the torches that lined his wooden house.

"More strangers? Out here? Look at you two!" He had a creaky voice, but it didn't sound hostile. "All drenched, you've got to be freezing." He let go of his staff for a second and let it lean against his arm. He pointed his quivering hand towards the star. A short flash of lightning came from the tip of his finger and hit the star, after which it glowed a lot more brightly, bright enough that they could feel its warmth.

"Come on closer, you two. Poor girl looks terrified. How did you get here? Nevermind, come on in! I'm sure I've got some stuff to warm you up lying around somewhere." He took a step to the side but made sure he always shone on them with his torch. Kris wanted to follow, but Noelle wasn't following. The old man grinned. Kris could see that he was lacking a few teeth. "'less you two want to swim to the main land, you're either coming or you can stay out here forever. Your choice."

Noelle didn't seem to want to follow. She was freezing, but moreso, she was frozen in place out of fear. "Are you - are you sure about this?" A little further to the side, was a light. The lights no-one else could see. Kris figured one thing. He learned out of yesterday.

It was probably for the best if he didn't touch more lights than he had to. At least until he knew more about this place. That way, if he made some big, irreversible mistake, he could go back. He led her to the light, and touched it. "What are you doing?"

He was as unsure as she was, but he tried putting on a smile. If he wanted her to muster the courage to follow him anywhere, he had to project confidence. "Just thinking. And yes, I'm sure. Let's go." It was working. She was following his lead. Now he just had to figure out where exactly they were. If this realm worked anything like the last two, there would be a dark fountain, and sealing it would send them back home.

It wasn't as if he wasn't careful. But this man at least behaved friendly enough. Guided by the man's torch, they followed him. The lit torches didn't just end at the front door, they even lined the narrow hallways inside the old man's wooden house.

In a room at the end of the front hallway, the planks that made up the house, in smaller form, were arranged in a vague imitation to a modern living room, complete with a box made of planks as a placeholder for a television. He even had a fireplace. Two actually. One in front of the 'television', which he pushed aside, and one behind the wooden couches.

If Berdly was here, there was no way he would have missed the opportunity to comment on how this solitary person was keeping all these fires in a house made of wood. But it somehow hadn't burned down yet, so Kris figured it was best to humour the man's antics for the time being. He was a hoarder. There were piles and piles of random objects everywhere in here, just like outside.

The piles were in the fake living room, in the hallway, they filled the rooms behind the open doors to their sides, they were everywhere.

And Their hectic host walked off to a corner opposite from the fireplace, to one such pile in particular and threw everything on it to the side until it revealed to be covering a drying rack for clothes. Which he put up in front of the other fireplace. "Just hang it all there and warm yourselves up at the fire. I've got something to do, I'll be right back." Without further ado, the stranger went further into his wide house and left the two of them alone.

Noelle had followed suit. She took off her robe and with Kris' help, twisted it to squeeze as much of the water was was reasonable with the force they could apply out of it. Then she, hung up the heavy red-white coat and sat down in front of the fire. Under it, she was wearing a shirt and a pair of trousers with suspenders.

Kris was a little uncomfortable taking his armor plates off. He was wearing all black under them. Shirt, socks and trousers. All of it as smooth as silk, but elastic and so tight, it all stretched straight along him like a second skin. And it remained that way even when it was drying off. Nonetheless, it was Noelle, so that was okay.

He was okay with sitting next to her in front of the fire in spite of that. "Kris..." Noelle needed some time before she had her thoughts collected enough to speak up, but it was unavoidable to do so at some point. "Will we be okay?"

Maybe. "Yes."

Why was he even trying? He could tell from her expression that she didn't believe him. "I suppose...if this is the dark world, then - is that why you look like this?" How was he supposed to answer that? He couldn't. He just shrugged. She looked over to the rack with her robe and his armor plates lying at the side. "Why do we wear these clothes?"

Again, he had no idea. No-one bothered to really think about that. He wasn't sure if there even was an answer. "And if - is it like in your and Berdly's story? You said the dark people there were his old toys."

"Everything in the dark world is actually something in the real world. They were playing cards with Susie. With Berdly, they were toys. But I don't remember seeing him anywhere." He nodded to the exit the old man had taken. "Or anyone like him. Do you?"

She curled together with her knees raised, wound her arms around her legs and hid her face behind them. "I think. Maybe. He looks like he lives alone out here. And if he does, that makes him a hermit. I mean it fits, but..."

Before she could go on much further, the old man was already coming back. And he wasn't alone. Kris got up immediately the moment he registered that, but he and Noelle were both startled when they saw who was accompanying them. After a few more steps, a dragon with a rounded snout and in a darker tone of pink loomed over the two of them with a wide grin that bore her teeth. She was tall enough to look down on Kris in a menacing way. It was Susie, fully dressed in her dark world attire, complete with spiked armbands and everything, with the colours to her scales and hair to match it and her devilsknife in her right hand. "Susie?" He had to take a step back at first. "Wait, Susie, is that you?" Why was she here?

"Yep!" She swung her weapon over her shoulder to carry it that way and swung her head a bit to shake the dark red hair aside so she could fixate on him with those menacing yellow eyes. "In the flesh! I made it to the dark world!"

Kris took a small step back, and only noticed in hindsight that he did. He was dumbstruck. "Susie?" He just couldn't believe she was here. They could both tell how excited the dragon was to be here. She was grinning at them, but something about her and the and about how unusually wide her grin was, gave him that impression.

More than anything, he was just confused. The card kingdom was the abandoned classroom, very close to the closet he and Susie had fallen through to land in the cliffs they were in before. The closet in Berdly's room led to a set of cliffs adjacent to a larger area that corresponded with Berdly's room. So going by the door he and Noelle had fallen through, this should have been his and Asriel's room.

How did Susie get into his and Asriel's room? The thought of her getting here of all places so easily filled him with actual dread. In the end, worrying about it for himself wouldn't solve it though, so he went out of his way to ask her: "How did you get here?"

Their unannounced visitor scratched the side of her jawline. "I'm not even sure myself. I just know that I'm here now."

Their returning host came uncomfortably close to the frozen doe and stared her in the eye with the one eye he had that wasn't half-closed at all times. "So you three know each other?"

Susie pointed at her classmate. "That's Kris, remember? They're lightners, like me." The fast, cutting way she nodded at him almost made him inch further back, but when he realized that he did, he pulled himself together and took on a more straight and solid stance. "So Kris! Are Ralsei and Berdly around here, too?"

"We just got here. I don't even know if Ralsei will be here at all. How long have you been here anyway?"

The old man, who was throwing around some of the junk in his room, chimed in here. "That nosey drake's been popping in and out of here ever since I got here myself." Once he found the paddle he was apparently looking for, he handed it to Kris. "Here. You're going to need this if you want to go faster."

He stared at the paddle for a second and then raised his head to give Susie a questioning look. "Yeah, that'll help. Hey! Kris! I got us a ride to the main land, too. Come on, let's go." With a slow wave towards the back exit of the house, she turned around to go back to where she came from.

"Wait, what about our clothes?"

Susie stopped and came back upon registering it. "Oh, right. just follow when you're ready then. I'll be taking this." She came back to pull the paddle out of Kris' hand and left again. "Geezer knows where to send you."

Well at least they had a way off this platform now. He sat back down beside Noelle.

She was a sweating, trembling, bumbling mess, and even though the cold their bodies were running hot to counteract had worn off, she was blushing enough to see it through her fur right again. "I - uhm - Are you sure about this?" She leaned forward so she could look past him and glanced over at Susie. The dragon was so excited, she was swinging her short tail left and right. "Susie looks a bit more - different. She looks a bit different."

Kris shrugged. "You look different, too. And I do. And Berdly did. I've been in the dark world with her before. That's just what she looks like here."

"But - but we don't..." She paused for a moment, looking down on the floor. "I suppose." They both spent some time in silence, staring either at the fire or at the floor. Without looking up, his childhood friend continued. "So what happens next?"

"Now we'll need a prince from the dark world. I'm hoping we meet someone I know. He can help us. Then we need to get to a dark fountain and seal it together."

He checked her face to get an idea of whether she was listening or understanding, but he noticed something else instead. She was pinching her upper arm with the tips of her fingers. When he reached over to pull her hand off her arm, she only looked back at him. More worried than before. "This feels too real. This isn't really a dream, is it?"

They were both shaken up a bit when they hear something. Deep, mechanical droning, the sound of metal grinding against metal. Something in the facility the hermit had built his house on, was shifting. "Settle down, you two!", the old man said. "It's just the pier rolling out."

Kris pouted and stared back at the floor. It didn't matter. He could remember everything about how they got here. He was real of course, but from her point of view, if he wasn't, how would he know? It was probably best to just let her realize it on her own.

After waiting for a little while longer, he finally got up to check on their clothes. They weren't all dry just yet, but they were a lot more dry than before. Improving too much here would have taken a long time, so he slowly picked up his armor pieces and the straps by which they were usually attached to and put them back on.

He wasn't in a rush either. He took his time, and made sure each piece was sitting tight enough that it would stay in place even in a fight. Then he picked up Noelle's coat. It was really heavy due to how thick it was. With one of his gloves off, he felt various spots to see how dry it was, but as far as he could tell, it was good enough.

Back at the fireplace, he held it up, to hold as much of its inside against the warmth as he could. She had turned it inside out to dry out more of the water on the inside of the robe.

Eventually, Noelle got up as well and began to feel up the inside of the robe. "I think that's enough. Thank you." Finally, they flipped the robe back and she put it back on. She took the many red bands with white fluffy orbs at their ends that were arranged at various places on her robe, especially the belt, and tightened them so the robe fit again, the way it did when she came here. She was ready to leave. They both were. It was time to leave this dark red metal island.

On the other side of the corridor that led right back outside the building, but on the other side, the grinning elder was already waiting. "Right up there, you two." He gestured to another ladder that led up to the top of the wall and onto a scaffolding that spanned most of the wall.

They had to climb back to the top, and then follow between the handrails right back around towards where they had come from, but onto a different part of that front side they couldn't have gotten to from where they were then. It led towards the middle of the front side, and onto a lengthy platform, which spanned a long way down onto the water, where it branched out left and right to form what the strange man had alluded to.

A pier. A platform that was dipped into the water just enough to move along with it, while still looking out enough for the two of them to walk on it. Tied onto a tiny handle on it by a rope, a small wooden rowboat drifted in the water. And on it, a very impatient dragon was waiting for the two of them, still with her scythe swung over her shoulder.

Only being out here and feeling the frosty breeze really drove home to Kris how well the wooden house isolated everyone in it from the winds and the rushing of the waves. He immediately felt the uncomfortable cold again when outside, in spite of him and Noelle drying up just before. Standing with one foot on the pier and with the other in the boat, their eager classmate waved them closer. "You guys ready?"

Noelle wasn't in much of a state to answer, and Kris merely nodded. "Sweet! Kingdom of Taint, here we come!" They took their time carefully climbing into the boat and grabbing hold of the sides to get used to how it constantly tipped back and forth with the restless water.

"You'll love this place! The surface there's just empty, but they dug an entire country into the landmass below. It's all underground, and they got everything. An underground city, underground woods, underground lakes, an underground fun house, anything you could ask for, it's there."

With the paddle in one hand, ready to row it, the human raised a finger. "Do they have a dark fountain?"

Still with her teeth showing, the dragon giggled and ruffled his hair. He made sure not to move an inch while she did. "Don't you worry your silly little head! Fountain's up over the Kingdom of Heaven, that's overseas from where we're going. But I've got you covered all the way there." Noelle sat in the back while Kris grabbed one paddle.

Susie took the other when she came back from untying the rope, and everyone had to keep their balance when the boat shook a little more again from being pushed away from the platform. It took them a while, but after some time, Kris and Susie got into a rhythm where they rowed the boat in sync.

The landmass they were rowing towards indeed had a mostly flat rock wall pointing in their direction far above. It was so enormous, looking all the way up alone made him dizzy. Maybe it was just a matter of perspective, but everything here seemed somehow bigger than in the realm around Canyon City. "So where's the kingdom of heaven?"

Susie took a moment to make sure she had the rod safely within the little frame at the side of the boat, and then suddenly, she stretched her left arm right into Kris' face to point that way. He was startled, but quickly faced the ocean she was pointing at. "Right over there." There were just endless black waves as far as the eye could see. And the waves seamlessly blended into the dark in the distance. Then she took her arm down and shrugged. "Can't see it from here, but it's there." If she said so.

Now that everyone was safely seated though, with the rope removed, Susie got up and pushed herself and the boat off the pier with a decisive kick with her boot. She almost stumbled, almost, but soon, both she and Kris got to rowing the boat together, each with their own paddle, facing forward. Rowing such a tiny boat through the heavy waves was taxing, and their progress towards solid land was about as visible to Kris as it was when he was swimming to that rig.

But it was not nearly as exhausting as swimming. For that, he was thankful at least. Staring at the precipice that hung over them more, the further they got, was uncomfortable to him. And it was hard not to be distracted and a bit scared every time the one uncovered spot on his arm brushed against the bare scales of her elbow.

He was slow and careful about it, but occasionally, he tried sneaking a glance up at Susie. Every time, he regretted it and immediately went back to staring at the hollow beneath the rock wall that was ever so slowly inching their way. Every single time, he looked up at her, she was grinning down at him. He was convinced that he wasn't making any sudden moves, and yet she always happened to pay attention to him. Was he so easy to read?

This slight dizziness from both Susie and the sheer size of that wall was interrupted when they were a little less than half-way there. He felt something touch the right half of his back, and immediately afterwards, a faint shriek came from behind him.

When he and Susie turned around to check on Noelle, she was clasping onto the bench she sat on and had a somewhat incomplete smile on her face. He wasn't really sure. She was blushing, completely tense and seemed almost alarmed, for lack of a better way for him to put a finger on what sense she was giving him. She tried to relax when she became aware that he was looking at her. Was there something wrong? "It's - it's okay. Everything's all right."

Susie turned back to face the front quite a bit before Kris and shrugged. "Now's as good a time as ever anyway. See that over there?" She pointed ahead. They could now see a lot more clearly into the gigantic cave that was carved into the mountain. "See those stairs?"

It was hard to miss those stairs. A fittingly scaled-up staircase led far, far up a smaller wall within the cave, which was so high up, there was no chance that they could see what was up there. "That's the way to the city. But it's a bit tricky. I made that mistake and took the stairs the first time round, we're gonna take a little detour. Keep going."

She grabbed his shoulder, but not in the painful way she usually did. She only applied as much pressure as she had to and raised raised the paddle. She wasn't rowing any more, so the boat turned until she started again. They weren't going straight for the beach, they were moving down the coast to the right. Away from the cave very obviously meant to be used to enter the city or what other place lay up there.

Even though this opening was a lot bigger, it wasn't the only one. They passed various caves that led into the mountain on their way. But they didn't actually make for solid ground until the opening straight to the city was long out of sight.

When they did, they stopped in the middle between a whole slew of entrances. In an area that was somehow brighter than the nigh-pitch-black ocean they came from. By the time he really took a moment to look around, most of the water was more in a tint of dark blue, as was the beach. An unnaturally big moon was shining down on them from here.

Overall, something about this whole location seemed familiar. Black spirals extended out of the water a little further off in the water. He felt like he had seen this whole place before somewhere. Susie just had them row straight to the beach and didn't stretch her foot over the edge and onto the ground until Kris could already feel the hull forcing its way through half a foot of sand. "There we are." She waited right next to the boat.

Kris followed immediately, but Noelle needed a little while to shake off the nervousness and dizziness from being at sea and from their general situation. "Get on with it!" Susie's impatient reaction startled her, but soon after it, she sped up and climbed out of the boat as well.

She led them closer to the wall. She didn't lead them straight towards one of the cave entrances though, but between two instead. "Okay, going to need some help on this one." She wound her arms around Kris and Noelle and then spoke up. "Hey girls! You can come out!"

Around the corner, from one of the caves, someone indeed walked around the wall and came their way. Noelle was startled enough to make a sound upon seeing who it was, and Kris wasn't sure what was going on either.

It was Susie. She wasn't looking up at them, but he didn't need her to to recognize her. The freckles, hair covering every part of her face that wasn't her muzzle, it was definitely Susie. And what was more, she didn't look like the Susie that was standing next to him. In spite of them all being in the dark world, this other Susie had purple scales, the hair that covered her face was in that familiar tone of brown and she wore the same tattered clothes she wore in school.

She was a little shorter than their Susie, and generally, looked the way she would have looked in the light world. On the other side, another person came out of the cave. And that person was Susie as well, identical to the one already approaching them. "Susie - Susie?" Noelle was audibly confused. But when the next two Susies included one that looked different from the other three, Kris began to realize what was going on. "What's happening?"

One of those two Susies differed from the others. She was was a little taller than the regular light world Susie next to her and had a two-handed longsword in her right hand. With slightly bigger arms, visibly wider, padded out legs, more muscular on both, and with visible abs beneath her chest that hung over her stomach unlike that of any Susie true to the she had a long and wide tail that befitted her form.

She was stripped naked save for two pieces of not very concealing swimwear which were made of chainmail and didn't completely hide the scales and what lay under them either. "Berserker..." He mumbled to himself.

The Susie that was still holding both of them tightly, nodded. He didn't look up at her, he could feel her nodding from the motions of her hair scratching against his neck. "Yep, the zerks are quite something, huh? They got nothing on the missies though." It didn't stop here. More and more Susies came out and began swarming them from both sides. Most just looked like regular light world Susie.

A lot of them were light world Susie with some gimmick. More berserkers, Susie dressed up as a nun, Susie dressed up as a bellydancer, Susie with smooth hair in a white dress, Susie as a cowgirl or gunslinger, two comically well-fed but well-proportioned Susies in their thirties dressed up as dominatrices.

The only one who had 'their' Susie's pink-black-dark-red colours was a single one who had weirdly stretched-out proportions and who was on a leash held by one of the other Susies, and walking on all fours. They were being swarmed, and before regular Susie let go of them, they were already surrounded with no opening in sight. "Okay, you two, okay."

When she did let go of the two of them though, she stepped aside, faced them and threw up her arms, even letting go of her scythe for a brief moment. "I've not been quite honest with you guys. Sorry, Kris." She brushed her hair aside so she could grin at him with both her bright yellow eyes contrasting the night around them. After that though, she swung her scythe up to have it hang over her shoulder once again. "I'm not actually Susie. My name's Axe."

Noelle was sweating, trembling and keeping her mouth covered with one hand at all times. When she heard this, she pointed at Axe. "That's - you're not Susie! That's why - that's why your tail..." She paused.

Axe and Kris both stared at her. "What about my tail?"

She didn't answer, her eyes only darted back and forth between them. Kris gestured Axe's way with an open hand. "So? What about her tail?"

It took the doe a little time to pull herself together, and even when she did, she inched away from both of them. "Nothing...nothing. Forget I said anything."

"Sublime work, effigy." The voice of a woman hissed down at them from above. It came from a woman who stood on a dark red cloud. The cloud spread forward into a curved, downward slope. She walked down its path until she was a mere few feet above the Susies around them.

Kris summoned his sword and got ready for battle, but when he did, shackles made of those same clouds formed around his his wrists and ankles and chained him and Noelle to the ground. They were allowed to stand, but they couldn't move.

She was a human. A grown young woman with tan skin and long, smooth and natural blonde hair. Old enough to be taller, but she couldn't have been much older than him and Noelle. She wore a deep red, silken toga - a robe that only held itself up by one of her shoulders, leaving the other bare. With loosely hanging pieces of cloth that dangled in the wind from her legs, her arms, along most of the length of it.

It had a major strand of its fabric hanging off her right arm, with glittering green bands on her arm, legs and waist. On her head, she was wearing something strange. On her head, were a crest or tiara made of black, wooden vines, and the antlers of a deer monster, either grown out of her head as though she was one herself, or attached to the tiara in a way that made it look that way.

Noelle was panicking as it was, but seeing this human seemed to set her off even more. "What is go - what is going..." She hyperventilated until Kris signaled to her by moving a little closer, that he was there with her. "What's going on? What are all these?"

The human woman kept her mouth closed while she chuckled at the terrified monster's reaction. When she opened it, her voice was a lot louder than before. "The Knight described them as the perverted obsessions of a lightner! Put to paper, but for no-one else to see."

The stream of Susies coming out of the caves and filling the beach just wouldn't end, there must have been hundreds around them.

The more they surrounded them, the more noisy the 'Susie's were getting. More and more often, you could hear one giggling, their smiles turned wider and wider and Kris was startled into avoiding directly looking at them altogether, when he did so with one of the Berserkers who stared back at him and licked her lips with half-open eyes. He made sure to focus his attention on the human woman instead. "Do you work for the knight?"

The tired-looking darkner above them could only chuckle at his question. "Perhaps. As of yet, we may be a keen man and his eager maid servant! But now that you are here, soon, we will be so much more."

"Are you their leader?" He pointed at the dragons around him and Noelle, just to make sure.

"Technically." Axe pointed at herself with the tip of her thumb. "I'm the leader."

"Keep to your place, effigy!" the woman above them hissed at her. "The Knight has chosen me as his prime servant."

"Kris...Kris, what is going on?" Noelle began to hyperventilate. She was having a panic attack, and Kris wasn't sure how to help her. He just looked her right in the eyes and tried giving her a look that would calm her down. He wasn't sure how and whatever he was trying, it wasn't working.

"All right, girls." Axe clapped her hands. "We got what we're here for. Let's pack 'em up and all head to Fortune's Keep."

"No!", the human woman shouted. "Keep only as many at the keep as absolutely needed. Faith, a few Mistresses and maybe some Grunts and Berserkers! The rest is to follow me!"

Real Susie's doppelganger was a little confused at hearing this. She tilted her head to the side and looked up at her. "Say what now?"

"We will set sail for the Kingdom of Heaven! Now that the lightners are in our possession, the throne awaits! Once this realm is mine, I will have the Knight's true attention!"

Axe sighed. "Wait, Tempts..." She turned to her fully and took a few steps back to be able to face her more easily. Where she went, the Susies around her stepped aside. "...Knight gave us clear orders. Keep the human alive and the lightners away from the fountain. Last thing you're gonna want to do is risk them getting away and lure them straight to it."

"What worth is this realm to him, if it is not in my control? What use is the fountain, if I cannot wield its power for him?"

"Look, all I'm saying is let's not get ahead of ourselves. We got the lightners now. We should devote all forces we got to keeping them right here, where they're in our possession, until the next time the Knight comes by."

The Susies went out of the way as the human sorceress lowered herself onto the ground. "You will obey me! We will set sail for the Kingdom of Heaven. Now!"

"That's stupid! I refuse to follow that order!" She put down the scythe and loosened her grip on it enough for it to slide down with its blade near her hand, something the real Susie did when she got ready for a fight with her axe already out. "Don't listen to her, girls! I'm in charge."

As soon as she said that, the same shackles that prevented Kris and Noelle from resisting against this ambush, were nor forming around Axe's wrists and boots, too.

The woman was now cackling at the sight of the upset and confused dragon. "Do you feel in charge? What gives you that impression? You're a lowly servant, like the rest of you! Nothing more, nothing less!" The more Axe resisted, the more the shackles tightened and the more force they applied towards pulling her onto the ground. It took a bit of a physical struggle on her part, but eventually, she stopped fighting back. "There we are. Had a change of heart?"

Even when the chains vanished from Axe's body, her shoulders hung down and she lowered her head. "You heard her, girls. Get the bags. Put the bigger one on the girl." And they did as they were told. From further behind, the dragon girls were passing two crude bags made of jute cloth, closed in on Kris and Noelle, and wrapped them over their heads to obscure their sight.

Soon enough, big dragon hands grabbed onto both of them from all sides, lifted them off the ground and carried them away. Kris struggled, summoned his sword and tried striking at them. He couldn't really strike at anyone since that requires swinging his arms, which he couldn't do, because the Susies were holding them tightly. He tried calling for Noelle to fight back, but she was too terrified to react to anything but an army of purple dragon girls hauling her god-knew-where.


	16. House of Cards

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 04

House of Cards

* * *

Kris tried to struggle. He tried to free himself from their grips, but there were so many of those dragon girls helping haul him and Noelle off through the rock wall's interior. And they were simply stronger than him. Noelle's squeaks and shrieks with hiccups in-between didn't do much to help him either. He was being moved and rocked around too much.

That and no part of him touching the ground was too much for him to have any real sense of orientation. The further into the mountain they carried him and Noelle, the more often some of their captors bumped into the walls or other surfaces.

The sheer amount of Susies between him and those walls softened the impact, but it carried over all the way to him through sudden pressure regardless. "For crying out loud, watch where you're going!" He liked to hope that was Axe talking. The one among all these Susie-lookalikes who actually looked the way Susie did in the dark world.

The rest were varying images of her light world form. In spite of them all being in the dark world. But it was impossible to tell whether it was Axe, since they all had Susie's voice, too. Almost all of them. Whether or not it was her, whoever was talking also made sure to step in when Kris was getting a little too uncomfortable with where they were putting their hands and pull a hand away here and there. "Stick to carrying him! Jeez."

At some point, he just closed his eyes and tried focusing on what he could perceive rather than what he couldn't. The temperature rose and fell. So did the humidity around him. "And for the last time, Maestra, stop trying. Everything you make, sucks!"

When they came to a halt, one of the only differing voices, a deeper, older sounding one, spoke to the one that did most of the talking. "Why don't we take this one up to our chambers? I promise he won't escape." From the sounds of it, the one that talked the most slapped that other one's encroaching hand.

"Yeah, I'm gonna say 'no' to that. Besides, dungeon's the most secure. More solid walls, chains, doors, everything. Hands off!" A few let go of his wrists, which he took as his opportunity to try struggling free and summoning his sword to strike at them. But it didn't last. "Don't let go of him, what the hell, I meant - never mind, just bring him to a cell! Something where you can chain him."

They caught him and had him in a solid grip again, before he could get anywhere. And the air around him indeed cooled down. Soon enough, he could tell they had brought him down to a dungeon. "Here! That one looks more like it. The one with that other - hey, you caught the sorcerer! Good work, whoever did that. Take the girl next door, so they don't pull anything."

He heard the clanking of a rusty door handle being pulled, and the screeching of a metal door that hadn't been oiled for a long time, opening.

"Got the keys?"

"Sure do."

Finally, they flipped him back with his feet on an uneven stone surface, but didn't neglect keeping a strong grip on him and pushing him against the wall. They pulled the gauntlets off his hands threw them on the floor, pinned his wrists against the wall, and put into rusty iron cuffs that were chained to it.

The cuffs were locked with that key by the adult dragon. "Okay, no need for that any more." By the time they got to removing the sack that covered his sight, most of the Susies had already left.

Only two were left by that point. One a Berserker, one of the slightly stronger Susies with broadswords and nothing on her body but swimwear made of chain mail, and a Mistress, a mid-thirties Susie with a whip and exaggeratedly voluptuous proportions, who wore purposefully revealing black fishnet stockings and an overdesigned black leather top. What in the world was he thinking, looking at them now?

"Where's Noelle?" He couldn't hear her anymore. She calmed down a bit along the way.

The Berserker gave the older Susie a questioning look. "He means the deer girl." He tried pulling away while the sultry-looking adult rubbed his cheek with her thumb. "Don't you worry about her. We left her to play with the new girl. She looked very hungry." They both laughed while they left. With a loud bang, the door between this dungeon and the halls they had carried him through, shut behind them.

While they did, he could finally hear Noelle again. "Easy there - easy Su..." Her voice was shaky, and the hiccups stopped her from talking fluently, more than the stuttering did. "No need to..."

"Kris!" His attention was immediately drawn to his left. Chained to the wall with him, was just the person he hoped to meet. Ralsei was locked in this cell with him. Fully dressed in robe and hat. And with wide-open glowing eyes, excited to meet him. "Finally! Those not-quite-Susies locked me up here."

"Well at least he found Ralsei. Now there was a bigger problem. "No - no need to come closer!" Noelle was more agitated before, and something in her cell was sniffing so loudly, Kris could hear it from here.

"Oh no." A dark suspicion crept up Kris' back. They said they left her with the 'new girl'. But the 'new girl' wasn't Axe. There was someone a little more recent. "It's Gobbler!"

"No - no -no, stay away! Help!" Noelle began shrieking of the top of her lungs. "Help! No! Don't!"

A male voice was calling out to them as well. "Someone help!"

Ralsei wasn't sure what was going on. "Who is Gobbler?"

He had to come up with a way to escape, and fast. "She's in danger!" He tried pulling at the chains, but that accomplished nothing. Of course chains and cuffs made to keep a human in place in the light world, would still hold here as well. But there was a difference. Humans in the light world didn't have any magic. He had at least some form of magic here, too.

He tried summoning his sword and shield, and in both cases, it worked. Except that that alone wasn't really useful. Then he noticed something. He dispelled and summoned them again. They didn't appear in full from one moment to the next. They started with their grips in his hands and expanded towards their full form from there. There was some outward movement or growth involved. And he wasn't sure how much force was involved when put to the test. Maybe he could use that here.

Instead of struggling upwards and away and having the cuffs slide down his forearms causing pain in the process, he did the opposite. He slid his arms backwards and down to slide the cuffs as close to his hands as possible. Then he angled his hands and summoned his weapons again. He had to try a lot of times to start getting to where he was going with this.

As he hoped, a tremendous force was involved in those weapon summons. He could even feel the metal press against it somehow. He just tried again and again, until he had his small, expanding shield and the hilt of his sword lodged in the cuffs. Then he did what he could to focus on that sensation, this impulse that always led to his weapons being summoned.

He gritted his teeth. It actually felt physically taxing and made his hands tense up when he felt the resistance from the iron that was in the way. But gradually, the metal began to bend and give in. Then it became harder and harder to further bend it, until it simply broke open. In the spots most deformed, it seemed to have turned brittle in the process. "It worked!"

He got off the wall and lost his balance so much, he almost fell over. The ground was uneven. The floor here was made of stones arranged as if they were flat stone bricks, but they were round and shoddily put together which made the floor tremendously bumpy. Then again, this was supposed to be a kind of prison, so making it comfortable was perhaps not the intention.

As fast as he could, he ran to the prince and adjusted his wrists so he could slide his fingers into Ralsei's cuffs. "Ouch!"

He stopped immediately upon hearing the prince voice his pain. He forgot that he had to pay attention to Ralsei's arms this time.

Which made getting the right angle more tricky, but his experience from doing it a second ago, allowed him to quickly get the hang of how exactly his sword and shield formed in his hands. And how to angle them in a way that didn't cut his dear friend's hands off. Once he did, all he had to do was pour his strength into overcoming those cuffs. And with clacking sounds louder than Noelle's shrieks, the prince was free.

He ran to the cell door to rattle at it and check. Locked. He turned to the approaching goat. "Can you open this door?"

"Yes, actually." He raised his soon glowing hand. He held it towards the cell door's lock with a circular swing that the light only followed with a delay. With some combined force, he and Kris could force the cell door open, rush to the next cell that Noelle's pleas for help were coming from, and repeat the process.

At the wall opposite from them, a weirdly proportioned, more feral-looking version of dark world Susie was creeping up Noelle. And she wasn't crawling onto Noelle, the doe was vanishing down that creature's throat and she was already gone all the way to to her armpits. It was swallowing her like a snake. It's hands served more as front legs to support itself on the wall. Noelle was completely out of it. She was driven to the point of tears and was already vanishing all the way up to her shoulders.

Kris charged at both of them, grabbed it's upper jaw with one hand and swung his sword at the creature with the other. He aimed for the waist to make sure he didn't hit Noelle. "No! Bad dragon! Let go!" His blade went pretty deep, it must have hurt, and the creature's angry tremors and the sudden force it was trying to shut it's mouth with pointed that way as well. Ralsei quickly picked up the pace and together, they repeatedly struck and kicked it. In-between, the prince pulled out his pistol, aimed and fired some well-aimed shots at the creature's sides to slow it down. "Spit her out! Spit her out!"

They both worked together to peel it's mouth open keep the dragon from biting down on his terrified classmate as well. It must have had a lot of deep wounds and bruises everywhere, until the prince determined that it was time to use his magic and pacify it. Once that was done, it's frantic-looking eyes dropped shut and it stopped moving.

They could finally get to pulling it off of the still screaming doe. While Ralsei held it's mouth open, the human pulled the beast by it's jacket. It took a long time and a lot of force to get her out. The dragon was visibly bloated and wrapped tightly around its prey.

She didn't stop screaming until she was free from the hips upwards and even then, she wouldn't really settle down, until they were already pulling the monster's maw off her hooves. The stench of drying saliva was impossible to ignore already. And her only recently dried off Christmas robe was completely soaked in it. "Hold still."

Lastly, there was one more person to free. In the corner of Noelle's cell, someone else was chained to the wall. A young man, he looked like he was only just old enough to be taller than them, but not all the way into adulthood just yet. Generally, he was about as old as the human woman in the red robe that seemed to command all the Susies. "Thank you. For a moment there, I thought she was a goner. And I was sure I was next."

He was dressed in a simple shirt and cloth trousers, with a ring of some stuffy, stretchable cloth wound around his waist and over his trousers like a belt. And he had blond hair, short, but just long enough for strands to look a bit like spikes hanging of to the back of his head, than bangs hanging off of it.. After that though, Kris had to lean onto his knees to catch his breath. Using his weapon summons to break open iron shackles was tremendously taxing for some reason.

While the human stranger walked past him, he and Ralsei went back to Noelle. She wasn't scared for her life any more. "Noelle? You're free. Can you walk?" She was too out of it to move. Even when he and the prince tried leading her away, almost pulling her by force. She just was still a trembling mess, unable to move an inch.

Then, to his terror, he heard someone move about the metal handle on the thick wooden door at the entrance to the dungeon. "Hello? What's going on here? What's all that noise?" It was a Grunt, one of the Susies that looked exactly the way she did in the light world when she was at school. Perhaps her jeans had a few less tears and holes than the real Susie's, but otherwise, she was identical to her.

Her jaw dropped when she saw them all free. But too fast for her to alert anyone else or react in some other way, two thin strings of dark red clouds extended from the human stranger's hands, straight to her neck and wrapped themselves around it. The man who appeared to have conjured them up, took up a solid stance.

With visible force in his arms, he pulled his hands, that the strings extended from, back. As if attached to them, the red clouds, formed in the same colour as those of the woman they met before, wound themselves back to forcibly pull the dragon to the front bars of this prison cell. "What the hell?"

The Grunt was choking too much to get too loud and not strong enough to withstand the force she was being pulled with. He waited until she was close enough, and then - with another powerful swing of his arms - the human forced the dragon's head to accelerate against the bars and bang her head against them enough to dent the bars, but also with enough force to knock her unconscious. "If we stay here much longer, there might be more coming. Noelle, look at me!"

He tried holding her by the shoulders the way he did with Berdly to get him to snap out of his tantrum. "I'm right here, okay? That thing's knocked out, but we have to move, okay?" It took her a second or two, but she eventually came around, snapped out of her trance and nodded. She made barely audible, affirmative sounds, but she didn't say anything.

While they led Noelle to the dungeon's exit door, the prince commended the stranger that followed them on what just happened. "That was a nice trick."

He smiled, with a soft gesture to 'present' himself. "Why thank you. I have quite a lot more like it in store."

Leading his classmate with one gloved hand, the human tipped at the man with the other. "Those clouds look a lot like...we saw a woman use similar ones."

The moment he heard this, the older human took his hand down, and the corners of his mouth dropped along with it. "I suspect I know who you mean." He described the robed woman the Susies seemed to take orders from to him. "Yes, that's her. I guess you could say we know each other. Her name is Temptress, in case that sates your curiosity. Speaking of which, by the way." He extended a hand to shake theirs and bowed afterwards. "Hi. My name's Dasher. Archer extraordinaire at your service. Well, I would be an archer, if I had my bow."

Very slowly and very carefully, they pushed the door open and peeked around everywhere they could. It led into a hallways, covered in ceramic tiles. This included the walls, on which hung paintings, usually depicting humans outdoors, with some recurring themes and objects between them.

Behind a pair of open double doors, off to the side, lay a kitchen. A modern kitchen, with stoves, a microwave and two electric ovens. In it, a plump purple dragon with brown hair, dressed in an all-white cook's uniform, complete with a chef's hat, was trying to fry something and judging by the dark smoke coming up from the pan, she had overcooked it. Kris gave their surroundings another look around, and then, with his metal boots off, snuck through the hallway and into the kitchen.

He crept up behind the cook and as soon as he was close enough, grabbed hold of her mouth and held it shut as strongly as he could. He shushed the startled dragon and began whispering to her. "I'm going to let go and you're going to not scream, okay?" When she nodded, he did as he said, but gradually enough that he could resume his grip if she went back on her word.

She threw up her hands and talked with as calm and quiet a voice as was possible for her. "I don't do all this fighting stuff, I'm just a cook, okay?" For the time being, that was enough and he stepped back away from her.

Kris looked over at her failed attempt at making food. "Did you try using more oil or not turning it up all the way, so you have more room to time it?" Maestra, the cooking-themed Susie he was talking to here, nodded. He heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the distance and pointed to where it came from. "Is Homemaker here?"

Again, Maestra nodded. Of course, Homemaker would be near where Maestra was. The cook put her spatula aside and wobbled into the hallway and to another door that she opened. Fully expecting this to be her alerting someone, he readied his sword and took up a battle stance. When the door fully opened and Maestra came back though, she was followed not by a Grunt or a Berserker.

The 'Susie' that followed her, had her normal build, but was wearing a black blouse with frills and a long black skirt along with an apron that was wrapped around both. She was about as shaken up at meeting Kris like this as the more wide dragon next to her was. "Please..." She was understandably careful around him. They were taller than him, and probably physically stronger, too.

But he was the one with the sword. "...don't involve me in all this. As long as you don't have something to clean, I'm the wrong person." Why were they both here though? Then again, he could imagine why. Of course the horde of Susies that were all about combat, left the cook and the maid as close to the prison as they could without actually putting them behind bars.

"I might actually have a few things to clean."

With Noelle in tow, the other two followed him to the kitchen by now. "Kris! Good news! I managed to chain the guard to the wall."

"Oh goodness. Look at you! I can smell it from here!" Noelle immediately drew the all the more distressed dragon maid's attention.

"As I said. We have a few things to clean. Is there something like a bathroom here?"

"The safest and best place for this would be the servants' quarters. But if you want to head there, leave me out of any fights. We told Axe we only cook and clean, we didn't fight for them, we won't for you."

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do if we run into more of them anyway. I don't think I can just cut them down like with the brawlers."

Ralsei joined him in keeping an eye on the corridor while Homemaker led them through the door she was behind before. "Then don't. Just do what you did in the Card Kingdom." It led into another, more narrow corridor, and from there, into a circular staircase that led straight upwards. The moment you went past the door, the smooth tiles made way for rough stone. And the staircase had 'windows', but they were just rectangular holes that led into pitch black caves.

"What?"

"Act! Flirt with them, I don't know."

"The flirting wasn't me! That was all the player. Besides, it was different. Those card kingdom people were...the Hathies were just a heart with tentacles. Those dragons are all Susie. I can't just go and flirt with Susie." His face stiffened up more, the more he thought about it. It made him uncomfortable. And nervous.

The prince stayed close by while they went up the staircase and rubbed the left side of his back. "But they're not Susie. You don't have to focus on the flirting so much anyway, just do whatever you think works."

All while following Homemaker up the stairs and making sure Noelle was okay, the two of them also checked the doors at every level they passed to avoid any bad surprises. Which may or may not have been a mistake, since not long after Homemaker told them that they were almost there, he and Ralsei opened one of the wooden doors, and just like that, Kris was staring an unsuspecting Grunt in the face.

No more than a metre away from him. Everyone involved froze in place, eyes wide on all three, even the dragon. With only his eyes, he looked over to Ralsei, but he didn't seem to have any ideas either. If they broke this inadvertent standoff, surely the purple Susie-clone would alert everyone in hearing range of their location.

Both sides were staring at each other, awaiting the other's first move. Both Kris and the Grunt with their eyes obscured behind their hair. Now was as good a time to put into practise what they were talking about. If only to prove to Ralsei that it was a stupid idea. Steadily and careful not to make any sudden moves, he raised his open hand to show that he was - for the time being - unarmed.

Then he formed an upwards pistol hand with it, tensed his forearm and then pointed at her, releasing hearts that blew her way. While he did, he stared as deeply as he could into what little of the dragon's one visible eye wasn't covered in brown hair and tried saying the first thing he came up with. "Stop covering your face like that. You have nothing to hide. Your eyes are beautiful."

Oh god, he messed up. If anything, he should have said something like 'pleasing to look at' instead. Or maybe he should have tried something poetic the way Ralsei did. No, this was all Ralsei's fault. Why did he make him do this?

Before he could reconsider what he should have said any further though, he picked up on the Grunt beginning to move. The angle of her mouth had an alignment that was impossible for him to match with any face he had seen her original make. With her eye as wide as it could be and her mouth slightly open, she backed off, onto the wall on her side and knocked a painting off the nail it was hanging by.

The moment she noticed it falling, she stumbled and turned around just in time to catch it, and then fled the stone hallway behind a door. Well, for what they needed, it worked miracles compared to what Kris expected. "Okay." Without moving an inch, he stared at the prince. "Can you use your lockpicking spell to lock those doors?"

"If they're anything like the real Susie, some wooden doors aren't going to stop them."

"No, but it'll slow them down enough for us to know they're coming. Maybe in time to get ready."

This could have gone much, much worse. As relief about this situation diffusing itself overcame them, the goat shrugged and did as he was asked. In fact, he actually locked the doors in the whole hallway they met that Grunt in before following Noelle up to the dragon maid's quarters. The interior walls consisted of uncomfortably rounded stone bricks, just like in the dungeon.

When looking around, Kris and Ralsei found something bizarre. In spite of it all looking vaguely medieval, she had a modern bathroom. It was all made of stone, but a toilet, a bath tub, it was all there, complete with a working tap and showerhead. In the main room, there was a wide and flat wooden barrel, filled with water and soap and a washing board lay inside it. Homemaker had Noelle give her her robe to start off with.

The doe went to the bathroom to take a bath alone. The door to it only ever opened for her to pass through her clothes so homemaker could wash those as well.

At last, with all doors closed, Kris, Ralsei and Dasher could relax for a bit. The teenagers sat down against the cool stone wall, where they could watch Homemaker wash Noelle's clothes. "So Kris." Ralsei saw this as his opportunity to ask something that had been on his mind for some time.

"So you and Berdly said things like that Lancer, King Jevil and all the others were playing cards and that Canyon City was a pair of toy boxes in the light world. Those other Susies are something too, aren't they? What are they?" Kris didn't respond. He kept watching Homemaker and didn't say a word. Ralsei spent a long, awkward time, staring at him, hoping for an answer. "All right. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

While waiting, he got up to walk up to the barrel and wash and dry his gloves. As time passed by, they began to realize, that Grunt hadn't alerted anyone, otherwise, they would have been attacked. When finally, the door to the bathroom opened, she was back. Squeaky clean hopefully. At least the stench was gone.

Kris immediately covered his eyes with one hand and tried to do the same with Ralsei. "I'm wearing a towel, Kris." Once he had taken down both his hands, she smiled at him. "And yes, I'm feeling better now." Homemaker had hung up her clothes by a rack and lit a fireplace, the way the old man they met before they came to the mainland had, but the fireplace was in actual proximity to the rack, which helped dry them better.

Noelle came by several times to fetch another layer of clothing before disappearing behind the door to put them on. When she was done with everything else, the human and his goat got up to help her with her robe, the fingerless gloves and everything else that came with it. "Thanks. And you." She put her hands together and went up to Homemaker, who never got up from her washing board. "Thank you, for your help and hospitality. Sorry for inconveniencing you like this."

"Nothing to thank. I'm always happy to help. By the way. You." She gestured to Dasher and pulled him back on his feet by his hand. "Your belongings are here." She nigh hopped to a corner and brought to him an open crate with all manner of clothing. The stave of a bow was too big not to peer out above and below.

"As for you." She began addressing Kris and Noelle again. "The others brought you in as prisoners, so you probably have no idea how to navigate this place. I only moved in here a few hours ago, like all of us, but I don't really stray too far from here. This will be much more useful to you than to me."

She stood up to pick up a map from a shelf and hand it to Kris. It was like a short novel in width already when she first handed it to him in it's completely folded-up state, but whenever he tried further folding it up, it turned out to be even bigger. He eventually gave up and folded it together to not risk it getting in contact with the soap water that spilled from the barrel. "Oh, I'm sorry. That is indeed a little inconvenient. Follow me."

She led them back into the staircase, one more floor upwards and through two doors into a bigger room. It was empty, but in contrast to the dim light of torches, this one had an actual electric chandelier hanging from the ceiling, so it was much brighter. Here, there was enough open space to fold up that map.

It didn't even outline individual rooms, only quarters and wings within it, and it was actually a set of several overlapping maps that seemed to depict different floors in a castle that was taller than it was wide. Nonetheless, it prompted an obvious question from the prince. "How big is this place?"

"Do you not know where you are?" Kris, Ralsei and Noelle shook their heads. The maid wandered along the corners of the room, all of which Kris would eventually reach in the process of opening up the map.

"'This place' has a name. It is called 'Fortune's Keep'. It is a flying castle and when in use, harbors an entire country's worth of people. Big enough to be ruled by four kings and an Emperor, but when it arrived in this realm, they left the castle and spread everywhere they could. I'm actually surprised you know so little of it. Your friend here is one of the people that lived here. When the Knight freed us and we found it empty, how could we resist, but to claim it for ourselves? You have seen the servants' quarters. So much of it is so comfortable. Much more so than where we came from. But I digress."

She walked over to one section of the map that, as far as Kris could understand, outlined the bottom of the castle. "We are here." She bent forward to point at a little corner with a staircase that had an identifier attached to help see where it was on the next floor.

"Even up here, we're still at the bottom of it. I'm not sure what your business with Temptress and Axe is. But if you want to win over more of us for your side, I might know someone in your reach, who could help." She began detailing their path, describing the rooms they were to look for, and which staircases to follow. "If there is someone who can win over some of us, it will be her."

Noelle wound up being the one that spelled out what they were all thinking. "I don't think we can orientate ourselves with a map this big."

Kris said nothing, but he knew how to solve this problem. He walked over to Homemaker, summoned his sword and straightened out a corner of the section of the map the dragon was on. To her shock, he then struck right onto the floor, cutting straight through the map. He pulled it out of the stone floor, but kept it lodged through the map. "Goodness. What are you..."

He pulled the blade along the outline of the two bottom floors and carved it out of the rest of the map. Then he picked up the much more manageable, smaller segment and began folding up the rest. "I see." Now that she understood, she came closer, pulled a pencil out of a pocket under her apron, took his map and began drawing the path she had described and shown to them on the map just a minute ago. "There. Now finding your way should be more than possible."

While Noelle thanked the friendly dragon a few more times for good measure, Dasher entered after them.

Apparently, he had taken this opportunity to put on his real clothes. He had taken off the barely tailored drapes from before and instead wore tight silk trousers, the shiny surface of which glittered in the light of the chandelier. On his chest, he wore a green vest with patterns of golden thread stitched onto it, along with a leather collar hanging off his shoulders. The vest and the collar, were covered in blue feathers that stuck to it without Kris really recognizing, how.

The feathers in the middle of his shoulders were long enough for quite a bit of them to hang off of them. Held up by the belt, the leather holdings of an epee dangled the weapon they were made for to his side. Off his left shoulder hung a quiver with arrows. With his right arm, wound around his right shoulder, Dasher proudly sported his longbow. The content smile spoke volumes of how glad he was to have it back.

And on his head, he now wore a wide hunter's hat with a significantly longer blue feather strapped onto it. Long enough to swing with the air following every move of the archer's head."Say." Once Homemaker was sure that they were set, she left to head back to her quarters. Meanwhile the prince walked closer to look up to their now better prepared. "Now might be a better time to ask. Could you tell us a little more about who you are?"

Dasher adjusted himself to puff out his chest a little more and proudly gave his garments a slight twitch to flaunt them. "Why of course. I told you before, I am Dasher. Archer extraordinaire. Brother in arms to all men I encounter." He leaned over towards Noelle and pulled a red rose, seemingly out of nowhere. "And charmer to all the dames."

Noelle was startled and grabbed the rose on impulse, but wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "I came to this realm along with the very halls you walk with me now. Along with Temptress and everyone else. Most spread out to explore our surroundings. I tailed a fearsome Knight to the coast beneath the Kingdom of Taint. I watched him do things that could only spell trouble, and considering this..."

He looked over to the door to make sure that Homemaker wasn't present any more. "...this draconic infestation, my suspicions proved true."

"Why, what did he do?"

The archer took a swingful step back. and raised his arm. "He made like this." He swung it along the length of the ground.

"And he chanted 'Queen's Delight!' and the ground roared and gave way to an infernal gorge out of which these terrific purple creatures ascended. But Temptress was with him, and she knew too well, how to spot me, so before I could warn anyone of the horrors the Knight had unleashed, I was made a prisoner to those horrors within my own home. Now it is too late. The others must have already encountered these creatures. These 'Susies' as you call them."

"Can you tell us what he looked like?"

"I'm afraid not, his armor was heavy and very thorough in not leaving an inch of him exposed. But whoever forged his arm- and shoulderpieces, must truly appreciate the female form. Believe me, you will certainly know it is him, should you ever see him with your own eyes."

"So if you're from here, you know your way around, right?"

"Of course. I know these halls like the back of my hand."

Kris opened his map back up and handed it to the taller human. The directions the dragon maid had drawn onto them should have been self-explanatory. "Fascinating. Your destination is at the halls of the Parchment Elders. Come on, friends. I have been there myself many times."

Without further ado, he opened a different door and led them through another staircase and went on. "Fortune's Keep isn't our real home, it is more of a holiday chateau that our people dwell in and travel with, whenever the lightners choose to send us to a different realm for a while, and it is what we use to travel back to our true home as well. We don't even live here most of the time, but there are a few peculiar figures that always live here without fail. The Parchment Elders. Most of them are mentally absent and speak only of strange riddles and lore, the meaning of which is never clear to us. And their halls differ from most of the castle as well."

The stone corridors and staircases didn't become any less constricting from here on in either. They really were modeled after the back rooms and tunnels used by servants in old-fashioned castles. And climbing these staircases was strenuous in it's own right. At least in narrow areas like this, running into patrolling Susies was an unlikely thing, which was probably why it hadn't happened more than once by now. "Kris, wait. Slow down."

He was scouting ahead with Dasher until Noelle slightly pulled at the drape that hung over his shoulder. "Thank you. For...I'm sorry I was a burden before." It was understandable, considering what she was like and how confusing this all must have been. "It just was all a little bit much for me at once. And then that Susie...monster...thing. You know what I mean."

"Gobbler." He didn't think twice about it until it was too late and he had already told her the name. And that he knew it.

"Yes. But Susie - I mean all those - other Susies. Do you know them somehow?" He moved along, slow enough to stay with her, but he didn't respond. "I mean you knew the names of some of them. Pink Susie said you guessed some other name right, too."

"Axe." He flinched. He did it again.

"Axe. Yes. I...it just feels to me like you know them somehow. You know something about them, don't you?" Oh no. This was why he didn't like talking to people in the light world. To avoid situations like the one he was stuck in now. He was scared of something like this as it was, but how was he going to explain it away now? "Kris, I can tell something is bothering you. You can trust me."

He couldn't trust her. He couldn't trust anyone. Not with things like this. Susie finding out about Jaws and Noelle seeing Samuel with his new face was more than he was comfortable with already. And the longer he went on without saying anything, the worse it got. "Come on. Whatever's on your mind can't be that bad. I think I already know any-"

"If he doesn't want to talk about it..." The prince stopped her right there and squeezed himself between Noelle and Kris. He was rarely ever as stern as he was lecturing Noelle now. "...if he doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to. Okay?" Luckily, that was enough to get her to leave him alone.

"That's it!" Finally, the older human had followed the inward corridor to it's end and swung open the door. By presenting them with an exit to the narrow stone corridors and dizzying staircases, he stoked up hope in an impending conclusion to their strenuous ascent.

False hope, as right behind the door, the broader hall was immediately preceded by more stairs, up to the main area this section of the castle was dedicated to. Provided that they could trust their map of course. "If we make it to the other side from here, we can take another servants' wing straight to the Parchment Elders." Great, so once they were past these stairs, the big thing to look forward to, was a whole lot more stairs.

Since this hall was about twenty feet wide, the torches were further apart from one another and it was a lot darker in here. Kris preferred to 'climb' along the felty red carpet up those stairs, to make less noise and ascend more slowly in case there was someone at the top.

And there was. Two Berserkers were casually strolling their way. One staring off at one of the paintings that hung between the torches. The other was inspecting her sword. When Dasher was already kneeling down and readying his bow, the younger human pushed it down and shook his head at him. Even if he had let him, how would that have played out?

He maybe would have hit one of the two, and they'd just both either attack Kris and the others, or alert other nearby Susie lookalikes. He had to come up with something else. There were sideways doors behind the approaching dragon girls, but there was no way to get to those without them noticing.

He didn't know whether they were aimlessly wandering around or patrolling or if they were patrolling, how much of the corridor and staircase Kris and the others had come from, their route entailed. "You know what?" Dasher patted him twice on the arm and similarly, gestured Noelle and Ralsei to rush after him and so they did.

Without any stops, he pushed them one floor right downstairs and took the door that lay in the same spot, but one floor below. It led to an identical, lengthy hall, up which he led them with more confidence. He didn't let them stop until they were already half-way up the stairs, but once they were, they could slow down. Kris took the first opportunity he got to examine the surroundings a little more closely.

He didn't open any of the doors, but something occurred to him in the paintings. One in particular for instance featured a man sneaking away from a campsite with three swords. He could have sworn, he had seen that exact one at the bottom near the kitchen and the dungeon. And this wasn't the only one. Leaving only a few metres in the middle, there were tables arranged in groups near the doors. And there was no-one else here. At least not ahead of them.

"Where do you guys think you're going?" Susie's voice alerted all three of them when they heard it. It came from one of two berserkers, which apparently had been running after them. "See? Told you I heard something." They must have followed them through the wide-open doors they left behind in the archer's haste.

"Run!" Dasher was about to grab Kris by the forearm and pull him and Noelle along, but he refused to budge. "What are you doing?" There was no point in running. Even at first glance, he had no doubt those two were as strong as they were able to endure running after them. He could tell from here, that they weren't going to outrun them. Running only ran the risk of running into more Susies. "We have to go!"

One of the two barely dressed dragons chuckled. "That human's smart."

"Yeah, like running woulda done anything for you lightweights."

They both raised their two-handed swords. "So you going to be nice and come with us, or do we have to use force?" Whichever way they took this, a fight couldn't be avoided. Some nice words of a cheesy pick-up line weren't going to spook those two out of getting rough. "If you're thinking of running away again, I'd really think twice."

He had to come up with something. With the brawlers, finding a way out other than carving and shooting their way through with swords and guns wasn't an option, they were plain out to kill them.

There had to be another way with Temptress' dragons. He thought of the Card Kingdom. Where most darkners had something about them, a theme that was important to them, or something that motivated them to either fight or not fight. And what caught his eye most here?

These Susies were more toned than their original. They looked more like what she would have looked like, after several years of hitting the gym every day and a planned, protein-rich diet. His eyes went over those abs, visible even in as little light as they had here. Those strong arms and legs. And unlike the model that inspired them, they had no qualms putting every bit of them on display.

Then it occurred to him. That was it! It was right in front of him. They put their muscles on display. And they were doing it on purpose. If they didn't want to, they could have just put on something over the underwear they started off with, but they didn't. He reached behind his neck and under his arm to undo two straps that held his shoulderpiece in place and began to unwind his cape to take that off, too. "What are you doing?" Even Ralsei was confused.

Now with his arms more free and more visible, he struck a pose with his left forearm pointing upwards and tensed up his upper arm to make his own arm muscle as visible as he could. Which still wasn't a lot. And it didn't have much of an effect yet, either, so he aligned his feet in the opposite direction and tried the same with both arms.

Then, in a soft motion, one began raising her finger his way. "Wait, are you trying to flex? Is this a flex?" The two dragons exchanged a glance, and burst out in laughter. "That's adorable, but that's not a flex. THIS is a flex!" One of the two Berserkers struck the same pose Kris did. But when she did, you could actually see the surface shifting on them. "See?" Not long after she saw the one Berserker draw everyone's looks and revel in the attention she was getting, the other one joined in, too.

So far, so good. Kris slipped back into his asymmetrical first pose, with one forearm pointing downwards and the other upwards. And as he hoped, the drakes imitated his pose to show off their muscles. He struck a third one, and didn't fail to make sure they were still smiling.

By now, Ralsei hasted back, next to him, and copied his pose. You couldn't see his upper arms, as they were hidden in his robe, but it probably didn't do any harm. When Kris ran out of different poses, he just started copying dramatic poses he had seen Asriel copy off some cartoon show about muscular men that summoned spirits to fight in their stead.

Of course all while not forgetting the obligatory sideways stare with a finger gun. Half-way through, Dasher came along to stand next to the two boys and join in on the poses. All Kris had to do, was hold on. He kept up this spontaneous dance-off in the light of distant fires, until the Berserkers found this too silly to continue, stopped posing and dancing and just laughed. "That was...something. What a bunch of weirdos." One of the two backed off. "But you know what? You guys are alright."

"Hey! Where are you going?" the other one shouted after her.

"I don't want to be the girl that puts them in chains. You do it if you feel like doing it."

She looked back at the three of them. Ralsei and Dasher were relaxed and seeing where this was going. Kris was more than anything relieved that this situation could be diffused. Noelle never joined them, she was just off past the top of the stairs, sweating and gnawing at her fingertips.

She shrugged and turned around to follow her lookalike. "Yeah, nah. Neither do I. You guys are off the hook for now. But remember, if anyone asks you, this whole encounter - never happened. Okay?" After that, she turned around to walk to the staircase for good. "I should visit them in their cell some time."

The party stayed in place to watch and listen to them to make sure this wasn't some ruse. "To do what exactly?"

"I don't know. Train them?"

"Yeah right." With a dismissive tone to her voice, one of the two grabbed the door to the staircase by the handle and pulled it shut.

Kris closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was over, the issue was resolved, for now at least. Now they could slowly move ahead and be careful not to run into any more of them. After they had moved on for a bit, they realized that Noelle was staying in place, standing at the door.

When grabbed by the wrist, she gave off a short, disapproving sound, but they had to move on, so eventually, Kris and Dasher just pulled her along and broke her out of it. The further away she was from that door, the more willingly she came along. And along with this newfound calm, they had more time to admire the paintings between the doors. Gradually, he started to notice the recurring themes.

The painting with the thief featured a total of seven swords in the picture, and there were a lot of other paintings with swords on them. But none of them had seven. Another, similar recurring object were goblets. Another one five-pointed stars like on the hilt of his sword, and lastly, lengthy wooden rods. By the time they were almost at the door, all the way on the other side, he was just loudly listing the recurring objects. "Five swords...two swords...seven goblets..."

On that last one, Noelle chuckled and interrupted him. "It's cups. Swords, cups, pentacles and wands."

"Is this some kind of card game?"

"It can be used for that, but it's more to read people's fortune. It's tarot." The moment she mentioned it by name, he understood. He really knew nothing about tarot cards until after his travels with Berdly. You remember 'the devil' right? That's a tarot card, too. Thing is..." She didn't try looking at him any more.

She wouldn't have managed making eye contact anyway. "...I know this will - this will sound crazy to you - I mean promise you won't...I don't know." He said nothing. "It's...The man on the island. It isn't just that he lives alone and fits as a hermit."

Even though she knew it did little to prevent Ralsei and Dasher from hearing what she said, she came closer to him and lowered her voice. "It's not just that he is a hermit. He looked exactly like my 'The Hermit' card. But that's impossible, right? He's a character I made up. How could he be real?"

She realized that going off their surroundings, this was only a minor question that fell into a broader one. The paintings around them weren't any standard or otherwise commercial tarot suit. They were her very own designs. Designs she had drawn, scanned, edited and then printed onto little cardboard slates. Small enough to comfortably hold with your hand. And yet she was surrounded by those same art pieces, each as wide as an entire wall would have been in a normal house. "How is any of this real?"

He just shrugged and moved on. Yes, it was crazy. That was why he didn't talk about it to her or anyone outside of Berdly and Susie. Noelle understood this now. She knew he wasn't excluding her from a new hobby. And yet, she couldn't help but stop and watch him follow Dasher until he checked on her and stopped to make sure they didn't lose her.

Now that she knew the dark world wasn't just a story to play-pretend with, she didn't see why he wouldn't open up to her about the Susies. How was it that after all these years, he trusted her as little as always?

Then again, perhaps it was a little silly to read too much into something that was understandable. Of course he wouldn't exactly chase her with his explanation on why the army of attractive dragon girls in his room, some of which wore little to nothing and had very pronounced proportions, all happened to look like his high school bully.

She just wished she had known sooner.


	17. Susie in the Sky of Diamonds

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 05

Susie in the Sky of Diamonds

* * *

"We made it!" It had taken a bit of a detour through a few music rooms, into a higher layer of servants' quarters and another long set of stairs, but apparently, they finally arrived at their destination. "These are the halls of the Parchment Elders."

Dasher, the proud-looking archer who was guiding them, had led them into a tiled hallway.

One step further from stepping out of the door, and you were already walking into a windowed wall, except that you couldn't see anything but darkness behind the windows that they intuitively passed by, all the way to their...to their..."It's our school."

Noelle was only spelling out what Kris was thinking as well. "This is our school, and that is our classroom." The hallways of their night-time school building only came in shades of dark blue here, everything looked as if moonlight was shining inside, but as usual, when you looked out of the window, there was no moon to be seen. A strange, discomforting smell filled the air that wasn't there in the light world.

Kris checked if it was the heating. The heating under the windowsill was cold, it must have not been running for a long time now. And the door to their classroom was closed. Outside of their group of four, it was completely quiet here. Every step one of them made, carried its echo to every corner thanks to the building's acoustics.

Kris went past Noelle, grabbed the door handle and ever so carefully, pushed the door open. Instead of their own classroom, he found a much bigger, dark hall behind it. The walls were lined with torches like in most of the castle, and in the middle of the empty floor, an obscure figure was holding a pen and a piece of paper.

In fact, he was surrounded by sheets of paper, they were everywhere, and they were all written on. The figure was mumbling something to themselves. "...times e to the x plus two to the x, divided by the logarithm of...strangers. Can I help you?" Only by then, was he close enough to see why they were called 'Parchment Elders'. It seemed obscure at first, because this darkner resembled the ones in the Card Kingdom a lot more, he was more abstract, more obscure.

It was a vaguely humanoid creature, and it had a face painted onto its head, but upon closer inspection, their entire person was made of paper. Their stringy fingers were just shredded strips of it, their head and torso larger sheets wrapped together into cylinders and covers for top and bottom. On its head, it wore a hat made of a smooth, transparent material.

A long, awkward silence ensued, wherein Kris and the paper mathematician stared at each other, while Dasher, Ralsei and Noelle slowly followed him. Eventually, the older human pulled him back a bit. "I don't think he's who the maid was talking about. I think we're looking for a dragon."

"Right. No, no we don't need anything."

Noelle apologized for them on their way out. "Sorry for bothering you."

The paper mathematician waved it off. "No problem." And then went right back to mumbling about his problem.

Back in the hallway and following it into the main entrance hall, Kris figured that this elder related to math class in some way. He followed the wall on his left and opened another door to a classroom. Again, behind it was no classroom, just a dark hall covered in paper and within, a similar looking person to the one from before. "...and then Tom buys Myrtle a dog, but they're both so irresponsible, they basically forgot the dog completely by the time they're back home and..."

He was describing the contents of an old novella. This was English class. He stopped and stared at Kris. Nope, this was definitely not a dragon. Slowly and without a word, he closed the door again and then took a moment, before he walked to his next door of choice. Maybe he was going at this the wrong way. Instead of just opening random doors, it might have been best to go straight to his Mom's classroom.

Behind its front door, there was another paper person. His chest was cut in a particular way to make it look like a white suit jacket and tie over a white shirt. When this one looked back at him, he was greeted immediately. "Hello there. Would you like to talk about our lord and saviour, Jesus Chri-" he slammed the door shut, before the elder could go on any more. So his Mom's classroom related to religion class.

Perhaps he had to go through all the doors after all. Behind the next one was yet another dark hall and the paper creature behind this one was mostly painted black all around their body. Shredded stripes of paper hung off the lengthy snout of their grey face like whiskers and two wider, curled stripes of black paper hung off the sides of their head.

They looked up at him from a scroll and beckoned him with a raspy voice. "Hey, ya wanna talk about our lord and savyah the holoc-" He shut the door as fast as with the last person. So this was history class.

Another door. "So if we add four hundred mililitres of a solution with a concentration of five point eight percent, we..." Chemistry.

But after that, came the door to what was the empty classroom in the light world. This was one of two things that made it stand out. The other one was that the smell got stronger, the further they went down the hallway and the closer to the door. Dasher smirked when he saw Ralsei struggle to breathe for a moment. "The odor takes some getting used to. I wonder who it comes from."

"Don't you mean 'what'?"

"Oh I know what it comes from, the question is who is smoking it."

When Kris opened the door, unlocked just like all the others, he had to step back and cover his face behind his arm. Whatever was in the air here, it was concentrated in that room and this higher concentration of it was being released through the doorframe.

In fact it was so thick, you could see it, and it made making out the figure at the heart of it more difficult than it had to be. "Hayyy, visitors! Here's a surprise. Come in, come in. I don't bite." At least there definitely was someone there and she was alive. Strewn across the floor, sometimes with several layers stacked on top each other were large crate-shaped pieces of electronic equipment. In one corner, Kris saw a familiar-looking keyboard.

In various places, arranged close by one another, were soft, stuffed balls of cloth. Some as he could feel, were plush. They were - perhaps purposefully so - large enough to use as fauteuils and couches for one or multiple people to sit on, even though you couldn't keep your balance when sitting on them. In the corner, a purple dragon sat - or rather lay on one of them.

When she heard Ralsei and Noelle cough due to the haze, she apologized. "Oh, sorry. Didn't expect anyone to come here. Just a sec, I'll have this fixed any moment."

She lazily rolled to the side and off her makeshift bed, and once on the floor, got up to walk into the opposite corner, and fetch a ventilator, which she just placed in the middle of the room with its front pointing at the doorframe, plugged into a multiple plug that lay beneath an empty bag of chips and turned it on. "Gotta get better some time soon now."

She was about Susie's size. Well, maybe slightly taller and wider. She was definitely bigger than when she first came into being, and she had more hair than then-Susie. With most of the dragons in this castle, you could at least see part of one eye and a bit of the upper half of her face. Not with this one.

Everything above the snout was covered. She wore a conspicuous pair of oversized sunglasses, with shades in the shape of stars and everything that wasn't covered by those, was covered by hair instead. She wore a black tank top instead of a white shirt, and she wasn't wearing her jacket the usual way - Susie's way with her arms in the sleeves either.

Instead, it was just hanging off her shoulders like a cape and her arms were free. And she had a more relaxed smile than Kris was used to seeing on her. As soon as he recognized her, he raised an eyebrow and came closer to ask if it was her. "Headbanger?"

"Kris!" The scolding tone in Noelle's voice stung, and she came up to him to pinch him with her elbow. "You can't just call her a headbanger."

"Dude, no sweat." The dragon raised her open hand, to let it drop for an awkward handwave and lumbered back in position to let herself fall back into the softness of her 'chair'. "That's my actual name. Headbanger. Friends call me 'Banger'. Actually, you can too, who cares, right?"

The human pulled himself off of Noelle's grip and walked closer to inspect her water pipe. "What are you doing?"

Banger put the mouthpiece in her mouth for a second and then began leisurely nodding without stopping. "Just hanging about. Havin' a good time. Not like the others want me around any more, right? Got myself holed up here with lots of pot. Want some?" She offered him the mouthpiece, but he just pushed it away.

Noelle couldn't help but notice the disappointment in Kris' voice when he talked to this Susie he supposedly met for the first time. In fact, he sounded pretty upset. "Banger, you're supposed to be 'cool' one. Not like this. You're supposed to be rock star Susie, not stoner Susie. What is all this? Why are you taking drugs? Where's your guitar?"

"Guitar's gotta be somewhere here." Again, she couldn't be bothered to actually get up from her chair and just rolled off of it and half-crawled through the mess around her, until she reached behind an old, fallen-over synthesizer. "Found it, there we go." At least she still had her black, spiky electric guitar, and with it in her hands and herself back in the chair, she got to tuning it.

The others took the time they were given to pull some of the other seats closer and sit down around her. "Can't promise much though, don't have all my stuff rigged up any more. There we go." Eventually, Kris joined the others in sitting next to Headbanger while she started playing and singing a slow, depressing tune. "When the light is running low and the sha-"

"No." Stern, and with no shame in interrupting her, he pointed at her and told her to stop, straight to her face. "Just no. You're supposed to play 'sick riffs'."

The only expressions you could see on Banger, were on her mouth. And unlike what Kris and Noelle would have expected from the real Susie, she wasn't bearing her teeth at him, even now. In fact, after staring back at him for a few seconds, she twitched and went back to tuning her instrument. "Right. I can do that, too. Gimme a while though. Tuning on this baby's all messed up right now. So, what leads you guys to my place? Actually, sorry to ask, but who are you guys?"

Before they could answer, she went on. "Actually." With nothing but her finger, she pointed both at Dasher and Noelle. "You guys remind me of someone. There's this antler girl who showed up a while ago, she kinda looks a bit like both of you. Are you like her parents or something?" When they weren't meeting her with the reaction she was expecting, she went on to nod Kris' way. "Or you two? No?" They just shook their heads. "Well coulda been."

"Do you mean Temptress?"

"Yeah, dude. That's the name. So she's still around. That one, sheesh. What a hoe. The moment she showed up, I hadn't ditched the others yet and she was already making it all about herself."

"Making what all about herself?"

"Ah right." She seemed to lose balance for a moment and stopped testing her guitar's strings and fine tuning them a bit more each time. "Forgot, you weren't there, right? So there was this knight guy, and he was doing his usual thing, being all serious going 'effigies! You will follow this one's command and serve me!' and 'raaagh' and all that. You know, all the stuff he's been doing since he had 'em swap me out for pink girl."

He stopped her there with a raised finger. And held it extra close to make sure she noticed. "Pink girl?"

"Oh right. So just today, this new girl showed up. 'Bit more beefy than the others, and with pink scales instead of purple. And like, dark red- or purplish hair and spikes and stuff. First I thought 'nice, more fans', but right after, this knight dude showed up in this weird ass armor. Made him look a bit like a perv. Then he beat up a few of us - wait, you know who 'we' is, right?"

"The other dragons?"

"Right, sorta, close enough. So then be beat up a few of us to show us how strong he was, then he beat me up, got a scar on my back ever since, and then he told 'em he's gonna beat up the rest of us again and again unless pink girl's their new leader and they do what he says."

"So, who was the leader before?"

"Dude, it was me."

"You were the leader?" Kris found this a little hard to imagine.

She raised her hand to wink at him, as far as she could with only a hand and by making a clicking sound with her mouth. "Fuck yeah I was."

"I was thinking you'd have a band instead."

"It's both. I was the girl in charge, and I had a band. Dude..." This excited her enough to actually sit back up before continuing. "It was totally awesome. We used to live in those underground caves and travel from cave to cave to set up concerts and all the others would follow us to rock along. That was all there was for us, day in, day out. For as long as I can remember. Until today, when pink girl and the knight showed up."

Then, the short sequences she was playing got a lot louder. "Yeah no, not quite. Gonna take a while to get this right."

All that said, he started to understand why Homemaker sent them to her. "Banger, don't you want to go back to where things were?"

"Whaddya mean?"

He was glad to notice Ralsei backing him up. "You were their leader once before, right? If you try to be their leader again, and we show that you're better than Axe, they might switch sides and join you, right?"

"You come with us, we help you beat Axe, and you get the others to help us get to the dark fountain. They don't even have to help, they just have to not get in our way."

When she snorted, faint and tiny flames came out of her nostrils. It was impossible to see her eyes, but it was clear that she was staring at the prince, before she went back to tuning her instrument. "You know what? Give me some space. Let me think about this." Clear words, for someone who wasn't of a clear mind. Kris and Ralsei knew better than to further pressure her now and got up.

Waiting for Headbanger to clear her mind and rethink their offer was a good opportunity to get some fresh air. Well, at least better air than in here. Noelle followed them on their way outside. Dasher, not as much. In fact he got up to sit right next to her.

While inching closer, he noticed the doe staring at him and nodded her way. "You three take a break. I will keep our friend company." When he realized that she was still staring at him and gave her another wink. "Don't you worry about us, pretty lady. We'll be fine,"

She was hesitant to leave the intoxicated musician alone with the self-professed 'charmer to all the dames' but eventually, she followed after the other two teenagers. "Kris." When she came back from the hallway that led to the room Banger was in, the other two were sitting and kneeling on the floor, staring out of the front door while not right in front of it to let the smoke through.

She sat down next to him, but stayed quiet to give him a moment to prepare for what she knew he expected her to bring up again. "She didn't know who you are. But you know a lot about her." He kept staring outside. "Kris, what's wrong?"

He was backed into a corner and didn't know how to get out. Even if he died or otherwise went back to the light on the metal island, before they first met Axe, they were going to run into the Susies one way or another either way. "I know the Susies are yours the same way the hermit was mine. All you have to do is say it. Come on, I told you about my cards. It's your turn."

When he realized that Ralsei wasn't telling her off this time, he brushed his bangs away and turned her way, but he remained silent all the same. "Are you so afraid that I'm going to tell Susie?" Did she expect him not to be? "I promise I won't tell her. You can trust me, you know that. I know it will be hard, not to talk about all this, but we could try and pretend it never happened. Or even if we didn't, I could still just say they were other people. There are 'other people', right?"

He nodded and she smiled at him. "See?"

The prince shuffled a little closer and placed a hand on Kris'. "She seems nice enough to me. And you two...you're pretty close with each other. Are you really just classmates?"

He shook his head and stared off to a corner on the floor. "She's something like a cousin."

"How long have you two known each other?"

"For as long as I can remember."

"Did she ever break or abuse your trust?"

"No."

"Even once?"

"Nope."

"Then how bad can it be?"

He pouted and his eyes shifted in Ralsei's general direction. The prince was right though. He couldn't avoid this forever. Berdly told him about his toy box, Noelle about her cards. It had to happen, even though he really, really didn't want it to. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled in a long, drawn-out sigh before he spelled it out, staring daggers at Noelle all the time while he did it.

"They're pictures. All of them. I know them all, because I remember what I thought about when I was drawing them. If I thought anything. I have a lot of doodles of them, too, but all the special Susies I've seen here are the ones that I've put effort into drawing at least once."

At least it was out. It was relieving, just like Noelle expected it to be, and he unfolded his legs to sit a little more comfortably. "The Berserkers were me copying a drawing Asriel made of one of his favourite characters. I wanted to see if I could do something like it, too, but I needed a dragon for reference."

"And Headbanger?"

"She was one of the very first ones I really tried with. I'm not sure anymore what he said but - so it started when I heard Snowy and Jocks talk about Susie. And Jocks said something like 'if she was cool like me, maybe she'd make some friends'. So I drew a 'cool Susie'. Well, I never asked him how he imagined that, but that's what I thought of at the time. You've seen her yourself. Except, now she's nothing like on her drawing."

She chuckled. "Don't you think the star shades are a bit much?"

"That's not 'much'. There should be one called 'FRESH', she's 'much'."

What raised his spirits, was that she was still smiling by this point. She wasn't shocked or appalled. "But, a lot of them - they're not just Susie in a costume, are they?"

Now that he actually had someone to talk about this with, he didn't feel like stopping. "They're not supposed to be Susie - well - most of the time. I'm just using Susie as a reference." A smirk crept up her face, but he preferred to pretend to not notice like he did most of the time anyway. "That's why some of them are bigger, some are smaller, some have a big tail, some don't, at least one even has horns and wings."

He could hear a hint of insecurity in her voice. "But - with Susie - well, not Susie. I mean, the one we thought was Susie. Axe."

"That one's easy. After me and Berdly came back from the dark world - well, you know how we all look different here? He basically already knew about the Susies. So I wanted to show him what Susie looks like here. That's really it."

"No. I mean you and I only changed colours and clothes. You 'varied' with Axe, too, didn't you? Why?"

"No I didn't."

"She looks a bit different from Susie."

"She looks exactly the same."

"No, she was a bit taller. I think. A little bit. And her teeth and her ta- Wait. Did you even look at Susie when you drew Axe?"

He spent several seconds pouting at her in silence. "You know, Berdly asked me the same question."

Noelle was about to respond to that, when a series of shrill sounds shot their way, sent by an amplifier that Banger must have connected her guitar to by now.

While they were still on their way, talking this interruption as their cue to come back, they could hear her satisfied voice cheer herself on. "Aw yeah! I still got it." When they arrived, always fighting the urge to turn around to not walk straight through the remaining fumes blown their way, Dasher leaned away from her and back into his seat. Banger played a few more riffs until Kris and Noelle arrived back at the little circle around her. "Hey you."

She turned to him as soon as he sat down again and made her instrument give off another set of raggedy sounds, so loud from here, it gave Kris a bit of a headache. "You happy now? This 'sick' enough for you?"

He smiled. "Yes. Much better. So, did you make a decision?"

"Yeah, about that." She put down her guitar again to pay more attention to her visitors. "So say hypothetically, I came with you guys, and we tried to get the band back together, right? How would I beat Axe? I can't fight. I don't even have a weapon."

Dasher brought a hand to the underside of her head and held her by it. And she just let him. "Don't you worry about petty little things like that. We could pass by some of our armories on our way up, and even if your sisters plundered them all, there's still a city right above the castle. There's got to be a blacksmith there, somewhere."

"Weapons..." Noelle wasn't so sure about all of this just yet. "Are you...we don't actually have to get violent, do we?"

Ralsei leaned forward and tugged at her arm a bit to draw her attention, then gave her a reassuring smile. "These purple Susies are much more friendly than the people we met with Berdly. And we got through a city full of them anyway. I'm sure Kris will find some way to get past them." Neither of them was really sure how his confident expression could communicate itself through the obscuring glow that came from all parts of his face. It just did.

She couldn't help but chuckle. "You...you seem pretty confident in him."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Kris faced her, raised his head, and then raised an eyebrow. Yeah, why wouldn't he be?

"It's uh - I'm sorry. I'll explain later."

With newfound spirit, the retired rock star got up and swung her guitar over her back to carry it by a leather band attached to it. "So what're we waiting for. Let's get the band back together." They could only hope it would be that easy. And for a brief time, when their group of five walked out of the classroom together, it felt as if it was going to be, but this impression was quickly dispelled once they were in the school's central hall again.

Someone stood in the open doorframe, between the five of them and the only exit, with her arms folded, indicating little or no intention to let them through. "I was willing to look past the substance abuse, at least you weren't getting in anyone else's way."

It was another Susie. A bit shorter than Headbanger, but more thoroughly dressed. She wore a black nun's robe with a white collar hanging over her shoulders and the corresponding headpiece wrapped around a good portion of her hair. Around her neck hung an amulet with a golden cross. "But now you're fraternizing with the enemy as well?"

Aside from her tone, you could see her disapproval in the slightly off angle of her head. Whenever she spoke, neither between Kris and Noelle could help but notice that she was the only Susie they had met, who had shiny white teeth.

Banger ran a hand along the side of her snout. "Oh gosh, it's Mrs. Goody Two-Shoes again."

Noelle wasn't actually as shaken up about this as she used to be anymore. In fact, she was facing Kris and laughing. He only watched her shoulders rise and drop rather than to look anywhere near her eyes. "A nun? Really?"

He shrugged. "I didn't do anything at the time and Mom still took me to church every day for a week. I was angry, okay?"

The nun immediately snapped at him. "Then it is true!" She pointed straight at him. "Human, blue skin, dark blue hair, armor plates, you match the description. The Knight told us all about you. One of the perverted lightners that preside over this realm. The last one left, too. Responsible for all that exists in it, including all dragons. Including me. And this layabout. And much worse than that, those two!"

They heard the steps of two much bigger dragons enter. They were heavy enough, that they could feel them. The two that passed by the nun were taller than her, taller than Headbanger, in fact, they were probably quite a bit taller than Susie would have been if she were a fully grown adult. Partly, because they WERE Susie as a grown adult. They had a grotesque, overtly womanly hourglass figure, and were dressed not to conceal, but to flaunt it.

They were wearing the same fishnet stockings and high heels from before. But they had ditched their top and replaced the rest of their clothing with a one-piece bikini that consisted of nothing more than two, two-inch-wide straps wrapped around their whole bodies, covering up nothing except maybe the very bare minimum on their otherwise bare chest and which converged around the underside of their hips and the back of their necks.

Their hair was more voluminous than that of any of the other Susies present and left nothing of their eyes to be seen. Not that one would notice, as Kris couldn't help but stare at the bare teeth in their widely grinning jaws. Of all the Susies, Faith, the nun charged with keeping them prisoner, brought Mistresses to back her up.

One of them raised and straightened a bit of her whip, to show off that she had one. As did the other Mistress. "But fine then." she continued. "When those mindless wretches left to jail you, heard the gunshots and came to report them to me instead of checking on the prison themselves, I made my peace with having to take matters into my own hands. If you created these abominations, then surely you aren't opposed to being left alone with them."

Her two subordinates made way for her to leave. "Mistresses, they're all yours. So long as they stay alive and don't escape, you're free to do with them as you please. I will guard the gate, just so that in the event of your failure, I am in position to stop them myself."

"With pleasure." The grinning Mistress' voice was a lot clearer and had less of a grumble to it than that of the others. The nun made her laugh, but being faced with not only Susie as two mature women, but both dressed as a dominatrix, too, left Noelle at a loss for words.

The other of the two spoke up. Kris wasn't sure if he was comfortable with what her voice was doing to him. "Now then, boys. We have some handcuffs and bedposts with your names on them. You can come with us nicely..." After beckoning them to come closer by waving one finger, she swung her arm around to stretch it out, which left her whip spread out on the floor to her side as well. "...or we put you in your place."

"Put-put me in my..." Noelle was just trembling, moreso than the rest of her, her lips were. She had her arms folded together and her eyes were shot wide open.

Kris faced Dasher. The archer had pulled his hat forward to cover his face, but couldn't keep pretending he wasn't paid attention to for long. "Didn't you say you're the charmer to the dames?"

Once he couldn't silently step away, he just shrugged. "Does either of those look like a dame to you?"

Great, so Dasher wasn't helping either. Luckily, the Mistresses were silently waiting for Kris and the others to make their first move, just to be sure what their choice was. He grabbed Noelle by the arm to get her to stop flipping out and gnawing at the tips of her fingers. "Now is a good time for you summon your weapon. I need your help."

"Weapon?"

He was understanding when she was still shaken up by being in the dark world and then Gobbler almost eating her, but it was about time for her to start helping. "Susie was able to summon an axe. Berdly had two pistols. I..." He raised his sword.

She only twitched together and inched further away from him. "I...I don't know...I can't..."

Oh great, the only grown man refused to seduce them, Headbanger had no weapon, Noelle probably had one but was too scared to make it appear, yet again, the only one he could count on, was Ralsei. Which was the next person he turned to. "Can you try - could you try and flirt with them?"

"Me? I mean, I can try." He closed his eyes and cleared his throat before raising his voice. "Oh you graceful beauties who stand before me! The way your majestic hair waves to all who gaze upon it in the wind, sends my heart aflu- I'm sorry, Kris. I can't do this. Their hair isn't even blue, so I can't use waterfall-hair line."

Well, at least he tried. They didn't look impressed or seem like the kind of people this would appeal to anyway. But their theme definitely leaned in the flirty direction. Maybe it would improve their situation, if Kris just tried something more straightforward and aggressive. Even if he had little idea how to go about this.

He just had to give them a quick look and say what came to mind. They flaunted their bodies like Berserkers, but unlike them, 'well-fed' described the form of their limbs and shoulders more aptly than 'muscular' would have. He just had to hope for the best. Flirting improved their situation in fights in the card kingdom, it did with that one Grunt, it would do it again.

He tensed up his hand not occupied with holding his sword, took a confident step forward towards their opponents, and when the hearts shot their way, he said: "I like your thighs!" Someone behind him whinged, but he couldn't make out who. He was more distracted by the fact that a snare of black leather shot out of the ground and slid past the metal glove of the hand he was pointing at the Mistresses and onto his wrist.

And from one moment to the next, one of the smiling Mistresses was pulling him closer by it. His heart sunk upon realizing the mistake he had made. This didn't improve his situation. "It made it worse! It made it worse! Help!" He fought against it, but she was pulling with more force than he could muster to pull away.

Of course if they were darkners, they had magic attacks, and of course, seeing as what the Mistresses were, their magic attacks were thin straps of black leather. Just like their clothes. Oh god, what if they weren't actually wearing any clothes and the straps that left nothing to the imagination were actually also just magic attacks? What was he thinking when he made the drawing they came from? He didn't even remember. He mostly buried them under the rest.

No, that wasn't true, he thought it was funny. It was a joke to him. What was Noelle thinking about this now that the 'joke' was right before her? Hard to tell. "What - what are- what are - " Between the mumbling, she was actually gladly not paying much attention to him.

Dasher finally grabbed his bow and picked an arrow out of his quiver. But before he could pull it against the string, another leather snare shot out of the ground beneath him, pulled his arrow down and then straight to the hand of the dragoness that summoned it, followed by more looped straps shooting out and winding themselves around both the archer's arms. He was being pulled now, too.

When the same began to happen to Ralsei, Kris swung his sword and began cutting off all the snares with clean cuts. But it was no use. The Mistresses immediately summoned new ones and had him, Ralsei and Dasher in their grasp all over again. They were all being pulled towards them, and the trembling doe on his other side, lost in her mumbles and uncomfortable scratches between teeth and lips, while not tied by the wrists like the others, was wandering to their imminent captors on her own volition.

He had to come up with a way out of this, and fast. Otherwise, carving his way through them would have become the only option. What worked on them? They were not Grunts, flirting wouldn't fluster them. Especially not the kinds of lines his mind came up with at a time like this. They were not Berserkers, as while they showed off their bodies too, the Mistresses' intent behind that was clearly of a more sexual nature.

He stared at their shameless, grinning jaws, their revealing clothing. Something there had to be the solution. Then it occurred to him. Something Ralsei said, sweating and blushing as he did so, flashed up as an image in his mind. Of course. Their intent was of a more sexual nature. Without noticing he did until after the fact, he stammered it out aloud. "If you want to hit me, that's okay too."

Understandably horrified gasps came from everyone, even Noelle snapped out of her feverish trance for a second. Ralsei needed a moment to realize he was being quoted, his eyes widened and he began to blush and check if anyone but Kris was looking at him when he did. They were dominatrices, so they were all about domination and inflicting pain. Pain was the answer. Actually, why keep that to himself? "Pain is the answer! They like pain."

He knew they didn't really understand. He had to take the initiative and demonstrate to them what he meant. While still fighting on against the dragon woman's hands pulling him closer, he dispelled his sword and summoned his shield instead. He diverted some of his strength away from resisting his approach to the Mistress and to pulling off to the side. While he came closer, he grabbed his shield by its edge with both hands.

When he really was in her reach, and she held his leashes only with one hand, he pulled and ducked down under her grasp and rushed past her. With all his strength, he swung the blunt side of his shield against the Mistress' imposing rear. The force rippled along her scales and she was startled by it. A faint shriek escaped her in reaction to it, but she didn't look angered or upset.

Once she grasped what he had done, she began to smile again and cooed. "Oh, not so rough." The way she said that made his armor feel uncomfortably tight and he backed off from her. "Did I say to stop?" Looking up from right below and seeing those fierce bright yellow eyes for the first time didn't do much to calm him down. He also noticed he had drawn out enough of the other Mistress' curiosity for her to stop pulling the others closer.

He just had to brave through it and keep going. He slammed the blunt side of his shield against her again. And she just let him.

After that, Ralsei was the first to realize that it was working. The Mistresses were just either letting it happen, or watching it happen, so he followed Kris' lead. He enchanted his scarf to make its front end more solid, and snuck around the other grown Susie, still watching what Kris was doing with the other one. Then he spun to the side and back and spanked her with his scarf, the same was Kris was with his shield.

The more they spanked the dragons, the less solid their stances became and the less they actually held onto the straps they held the heroes by.

Eventually, Dasher joined in as well by ripping the whip out of the loose grip of the Mistress on Ralsei's side and pushed the prince aside to get him to join Kris on the other one. He quickly stepped back to have enough of a distance to swing his arm and strike the mistress with her own whip. Which prompted a shriek quite a bit louder than all the ones Kris and Ralsei got out of them.

Not only were their opponents not fighting back against their weirdly uncomfortable attacks, they were turning their backs on them and getting all fours to give the three of them better angle. Noelle had stopped closing in on the Mistresses. She could only gaze in horror at what was transpiring before her.

Even Headbanger was afraid.

While they both stood side by side with their jaws dropped, for the first time since they met her, the former rock star took off her glasses, because she didn't believe what she was seeing through them. Strike after strike, the Mistresses followed each attack with quaking motions with their bodies to overdramatize the impact they made on them. The literal torture of those two grown Susie-look-alikes went on and on.

They didn't think to stop until Kris and Ralsei's lost balance and collapsed on the floor for a second. When she did though, the prince rushed forward, held his hand in front of her face, and cast a spell. Before she knew what was happening, she collapsed once more and fell asleep. The other Mistress, now covered in the visible bruises and wounds from a long, merciless whipping, could barely keep herself on her knees, let alone put up a fight when he rushed to her and pacified her as well.

For almost half a minute, everyone stood completely still just to be absolutely sure that the Mistresses weren't getting back up. Kris, slightly ducked throughout their time waiting, finally signaled everyone to relax by standing upright. "Let's go." He immediately instructed Dasher to guide them to the top of the castle, where apparently the only exit was located.

He spoke much faster after they were done with the Mistresses. Louder, and more clearly. And he was a bit snippish in doing so. Noelle could only guess why his visibly tense lips never relaxed ever since they left this replica of their school. When they were back in the safety between the narrow, solid stone walls of another servants' staircase, she twitched him by some of the black fabric not covered in armor. "So, uhm. Kris. What was that, back there? In the school?"

"A mistake. Maybe." He showed little regard and went right on to stop and face Ralsei. "Which pacify spell did you use, the short one or the long one?"

"The long one."

"Phew, good. Otherwise, they'd becoming back for more soon." The thought conjured up all the wrong feelings in both him and Noelle. She figured that his change in demeanour and the way he mistook what she asked him, meant that he didn't want to talk about what she was really referring to.

The truth was that he was terrified. Terrified of what conclusions she would draw, having seen what she had just seen. He knew that turning back time did help to dodge some attacks, but those Mistresses weren't static. They were going to run into them no matter what. Whatever he did, Noelle would come out of this, having seen them and there was nothing he could do about that.

What would she say to others about it? Would she talk about it? He tried not to think about it, but her drawing his attention back to it didn't help with this in the slightest. Every time she drew his attention, he was at a loss for words when it came to the Susies. He wanted a way to talk about the Mistresses, but he couldn't think of one. All he could do, was distract himself and focus on what was ahead.


	18. The One Who Bears Fangs At God

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 06

The One Who Bears Fangs at God

* * *

For another trek through the servants' quarters, always at the heart of Noelle's and Ralsei's attention, Kris went back and forth between pragmatic and commandeering on one hand, and completely silent on the other. Even though there was little reason to be, they were all relieved when eventually, the archer guiding them broke this routine. "So, everyone." He stopped at the corridor atop another staircase, in front of a wooden door.

"The safe paths end here. Anything beyond this door and above, are the court halls. There are neither noble quarters nor servants' quarters. No far-off narrow stairways anymore. Only this." Slowly and carefully, always peeking ahead a little bit more as he did so, he opened the door and eventually revealed it to everyone else. Ahead lay a hallway a bit wider than the one they met the Berserkers in.

And there were no stairs leading to the main portion of it. Instead, the entire hall was uneven. The floor was flat, covered in several feet wide tiles, but all in a mildly steep fashion, with their group of five at the bottom. Instead of closed doors, the walls were lined with open doorframes that led into banquet halls. And between them, the paintings were different. Different paintings were mixed between what Kris already figured were enlarged tarot card designs.

But now, different objects and symbols were included. Going by how one featured spades and another hearts, even he could tell that the paintings here seemed to branch out to include all kinds of playing cards. "What follows from here, is merely a maze of halls such as this one. I'm afraid we can't rely on the safety of narrow spaces any longer."

At first, only Dasher, Kris and Ralsei peeked out. Then the shorter two of the three were pushed aside by their new reptilian follower. "Stop getting hung up, there's either someone there or there isn't." Sick of the constricting parts of the castle they dragged her through, Headbanger couldn't wait to squeeze her way out of the door and relax. Her sloppy, unfitting shoes cast an easily audible echo throughout the hall.

Kris showed little of a reaction on the outside, but on the inside, enough for it to probably show enough for Noelle to tell, he was upset to no end at how clumsy Headbanger was. He knew Noelle knew, because reading his expression caused her to chuckle. Not that that mattered, Banger had made enough noise. All he could hope for, was that they were lucky and that no-one was here.

What was he going to do? Shove away and tell the big dragon to shut up and be patient? She was a lot more friendly, but also over a head taller than him.

But his worry nonetheless proved well-founded. As they could hear steps that were neither Headbanger's, nor that of anyone else among their party. Slow, unsure steps, but steps nonetheless, and they were coming their way. Scratching an open spot on her legs beneath one of the many holes in her jeans with one hand, and holding a glass jar in the other, a Grunt wandered through a doorframe to their side, into their sight.

Her lower mouth was dripping with a bright beige, thick liquid, that shared its colour with the contents of the jar. "Hey!" She must have been drinking from it, and by the looks of the now very agitated archer pointing at her, to a fault. "That's my eggnog!" The purple dragon froze, then pointed at her drink. "Yes!" Dasher responded. "It's my favourite. It's got to be one of Temptress' last jars, and she's just binge drinking it."

This time, for lack of an option not to, Kris took the initiative and pulled Dasher back by his wrist. "Wait!" He pointed at the Susie lookalike and to his relief, she moved as little now as she did before. "Wait." He had to come up with something. She was going to notify the other Susies if he didn't come up with a solution. Or just attack them. He had to come up with something, and fast.

But what could he do? The very first thing he could think of, was, in spite of how absurd that was, flirting. Trying to recreate what worked with that first Grunt they ran into. But he knew there were more than the one, he couldn't use the same line on all of them. All he could do, was stay still and stall for time that way. He had no experience dating anyone let along flirting with anyone. How was he supposed to know what she wanted to hear?

Then he had an idea. When he tried to get the real Susie to flirt with some of the darkners in the Card Kingdom, she had some really weird pick-up lines, but he could chalk that up to Ralsei telling her to say things she wished someone told her. So without further thinking about it, he made his suiting gesture, shot hearts her way and announced: "You are unbanned from free ham sandwich day!"

Ralsei wasn't surprised by his choice of words, and Headbanger expected something bizarre like this, just going by the first impression she got from him. But Noelle and Dasher were confused, and a bit embarrassed. The Grunt gave little signs of reacting either way, apart from backing off by half a step. She was as surprised as the other uninitated were. But after a moment of being startled, she stuttered out a response. "Uh okay. Thanks...I guess? What is ham sandwich day?"

On second thought, this may have been a mistake, but Kris had gone this far, he had to commit to it. "A day where everyone who shows up gets free ham sandwiches. And you're invited."

"Awesome...maybe?" She really liked the idea, but the circumstances under which this conversation was happening really stunted it on both sides.

"But there are some conditions. You let us pass, you stop drinking that stuff and you don't tell the others you saw us. Okay?"

Still confused and a little scared, the dragon backed off and retreated to where she came from. "Sure. Can't stop the others from trying to get you though."

"That's okay."

When he was just about to relax after seeing her vanish, she peeked back into the hall. "But when that ham sandwich thing happens, you'll tell me, right? I'll be right here. Probably."

"Sure." When she retreated after that, he paused for a moment to see if she would come back, but she didn't. He inhaled, sighed and let his shoulders drop. Phew. Now he knew that there still was a multitude of purple dragons between them and the exit, but at least they had gotten past the first one. The ham sandwich day line was a success. She must have been really hungry for that to work.

Their break didn't last for long, the noise seemed to stir another Grunt from behind another doorframe on the other side. "What's going o- lightners. Girls! Hey you!" She turned around to where she came from and called for another one to follow her. "The lightners are here!" She didn't give her friend the time to get up and follow her though, and went right up to Kris and the others. "Stop right there." She seemed unsure as to how to approach them, but she did so anyway. "You there." She pointed at headbanger, who wasn't fazed by being singled out. "Back me up here. We're supposed to beat up these guys and lock them up."

Banger just grinned and put her hands together behind her head. "Nope. I'm with these guys now."

"Seriously? You let them talk you into switching sides this easily?"

Before this could get any further out of control, K repeated his usual gesture and directed his finger at their new enemy. "Your outfit is NOT disgusting!" He told the more confrontational dragon.

Their enemy was surprised and confused enough to the to take a step back and throw up her elbow in a defensive manner. "What the hell? What was that all about?"

Rockstar Susie stepped forward a little further. "I think that's his way of saying he doesn't want to fight you."

"What? I mean sure, I don't want to either, but what if Axe shows up? Nevermind Axe. What if Faith loses it for good and wants to make an example out of me? She's been bringing up weird words like 'wheelweaving' and 'scaphism' and I'm pretty sure she's talking about killing people in some way."

While they were talking, Noelle asked Kris with a lowered voice: "Who's Faith?"

"The nun."

"Trust me, these guys are weird, I get that, but I think they're for real. We're gonna beat Axe and bring the good old days back. How fun is hanging out in a boring castle like this if we could be partying hard like before?"

"I'll believe that you'll beat Axe when I see you get past Faith."

"Can't see if that'll happen if you won't let us pass."

"Good point."

Kris began to lose his patience, summoned his sword and took on a battle stance. "So are you going to let us pass or not?"

Apparently this startled the Grunt enough to throw up her hands, take up a defensive position and move back to the hall she had come from. "Dude, calm down. Yeah, I'm not stopping you. It's not me she'll make an example of anyway. If it's anyone, it's gonna be her." He started to understand that contrary to his expectation, the Grunts weren't as much violent as they were lazy and hungry.

Even with the first two or three navigated past, they still had a long way up. At the other end of the hall, the outer edge of the castle just had a tall staircase that led to another uneven hall for them to walk up in the opposite direction. And all along the way, they ran into more Grunts.

Noelle had to witness time after time, Kris pointing and shooting hearts towards creatures that looked and sounded exactly like Susie, and blurting out pick-up lines so bizarre, half the time they didn't sound like pick-up lines at all. At first, Ralsei could reassure her that there was some logic to it, as all he did, was reuse lines they heard from Susie when they tried to get her to flirt with darkners in the Card Kingdom.

But he couldn't keep that going forever, so he just wound up making up new ones as he went along.

And she wasn't sure whether she liked the new, less obscure undertone they came with. Lines like "Don't stop tackling the vending machine!" made way for him telling them things like "I want us to watch a movie together!", "You look inspiring.", "I would love to watch the autumn sun go down in your arms!" and even "You are the reason I get up. The only reason to keep going for me, is to see you again. You give my life meaning. Whenever I look at you, I feel like there is a purpose to life after all."

After sparing a Grunt with that last line, the prince picked up on Noelle's nervousness enough to tug at Kris' arm. "I'm sorry, I think you're making her a bit uncomfortable. And honestly, me too. It was different in the Card Kingdom, because of the player and everything, but I don't really like you talking to strangers like this."

'Talking to strangers like this' what was he hearing? Kris grinned. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were my Mom."

The prince blushed a little and laughed along with him. "I apologize if it rained a bit on your parade."

No, Ralsei was right. Kris was enjoying this way too much. Everything he threw at the Grunts worked somehow. They were all either flustered, or weirded out enough leave them alone. Which it was, he didn't care. He couldn't keep any of these drawings a secret from her any more, that ship had long sailed, so at this point, there was nothing restraining him any more.

What happened in the dark world, stayed in the dark world. He could tell the Grunts anything he liked. "Look." He passed Ralsei to get closer to Noelle. "If you wanted to be included, you just had to say something." On the very next encounter with two Grunts, he summoned his sword purely for aesthetic purposes, swung his other arm to point at the enemy and shouted. "Noelle! Flirt with them."

"What?" More and more upon hearing this, the scared doe pulled together and retreated deeper and deeper into her christmas robe. "What?"

Kris turned to her, went as far as to pull his hair away to try to give her a reassuring look and smiled. "Just say anything you like. Anything works. Look!" He stepped forward and pointed at one of them. "You!" The Susie to the left carefully pointed at herself. "Yes you! You're a murderer." Both their enemies looked confused. With an overly wide grin, he slowly raised two finger guns her way. "'Cause that outfit is really killing it."

The reactions from behind him were understandably disappointed, but he didn't care. What mattered was how his target reacted. The dragon he was speaking to, stammered out attempts at coming up with a response, but she just wound up announcing her departure and left. With one of the two gone, he turned to Noelle again. "See? Anything you say works. Just try."

All of a sudden, Noelle had second thoughts. His encouragement only intimidated her into burying more of her face in her robe. "I - uhm - I don't know."

Then he just spelled it out. "What happens in the dark world, stays in the dark world. Nothing you can say is too embarrassing. Just try."

"I'll...I'll try. You!" She had to take a deep breath to muster the courage, even with everyone being extra patient with her. She blurted it out with her eyes closed. "You're a hot piece!" And even afterwards, she pulled right back into her robe until only the eyes and antlers were looking out. "What..." She didn't say anything else, until she noticed Kris being upset with her. "What's wrong?"

"If you're going to be THIS straightforward, why not actually commit to it?" She didn't even answer. But even he could figure, that she wasn't really sure, what he meant. "Okay, look. Hey, Grunt!" He drew their previously unimpressed opponent's attention. Again, smiling, he raised both his hands, one stretched out, both fingers pointing her way. "That's a hot piece of ass you got there."

"What?"

This was enough to coax the doe out of hiding. "Kris, what has gotten into you?"

Now she was upset with him? Why? He was trying to help here. He just threw his arms up, knowing she would understand the gesture. "Isn't this the exact thing you were trying to say?"

"No I - I don't know what I was - you're normally nothing like this. What is going on with you?"

"I just told you. What happens in the dark world, sta - look, I'm sorry. What is it you want me to do?"

Noelle, blushing to no end over all this, just covered her face in her hands for a while and sighed. When she took her hands away, she was smiling. "I'm not mad at you. That's not it. I just never saw you - this dark world - the Susies - this is really bringing you out of your shell somehow. I've never seen you like this before."

He shrugged. What was he even supposed to say to that? Nevertheless, this was enough excitement for Noelle, and by the time they had any attention to spare for the Grunt they used those lines on, she was already gone.

So she left the rest of the 'flirting their way past all the Grunts' part to Kris. He asked Dasher if he didn't want to give it a try, but he insisted they weren't anything you could describe as a lady or a dame.

After a few more of those halls, at last, they got to a part of the castle where the floor wasn't a slope any more. Instead, the hall they got to was wider, and the ceiling reached much further up. It was decorated in an exorbitant way, with lines of gold formed to make up serpents and other figures, molded onto the top and bottom of every wall, and the sides of all the railings along the staircase that led along several floors, all of which were included in this one hall.

And that was not even mentioning the formerly well-decorated tables, with shiny silverware strewn across the folded white tablecloths. "We're almost there." To the left and right, apparently, there were more dining halls similar to this one. And at the very top, it extended itself quiet a lot further forward, all the way to a tall and wide wooden gate.

And just as expected, when they approached it, from one of the identical halls to the side, came a familiar face. Faith. Light world Susie, dressed up as a nun. She bore her teeth at them, swung her arm to the side, and in position for her to wrap her arm over her weapon. An enormous book with heavy metal reinforcing its cover on both sides - presumably, a bible. "This far and not any further, lightners."

With her bible in hand, once she was sure that they weren't just going to run for it, she walked further to the side to place herself exactly between the heroes and the exit. "I will deal with you myself, your punishment will be severe!"

Noelle froze in motion, but continued to tremble as she did. "Pu - What punishment?"

"You will be flogged two-hundred times, all of you! I found an entire wall covered in floggers and scourges! One more painful than the next. I will have plenty a choice for tools."

"Don't touch those, they belong to a friend of mine!" This was when at last, Dasher saw fit to step into the limelight. He smiled and moved past Kris and the others. "Regardless of that, my, my. Aren't we having a bit of an attitude here? Me and my friends don't have to put up with this. Getting judged like this by just any peasant frow that comes our way. Who do you think you are?"

"None are to be spared judgment before the lord! Lightners are no exception and neither are you, you coward." With a key pulled from a white band wound around her black robe, the nun opened the bible's lock and opened it up on a specific page. Once there, she held her hand over it with her palm pointing down at the page. A circular light shone from on the page and through it, a bishop's staff glided up into the air and into her hand. She placed the book on the floor and grabbed the cane.

"Coward? Bold words for a literal, fire-breathing dragon, armed with knowledge and weaponry, and who yet won't fight us on the spot before making us go through countless unarmed dragons. That isn't mentioning the effigies of pure, unadulterated sin you had no qualms directing our way."

"I've no need to justify myself before a coward."

"And I've no need to be judged by one." The archer, never ceasing to grin, took off his bow and placed it on the floor. From a sheath tied to his belt, he pulled a fencing foil. "If a fight is unavoidable, I will waste no arrows on you. And you will yet not strike me."

With one hand, he grabbed his tricorne by the side, and tossed it to have it spin into Noelle's arms. Without leaving time for him to go on any further, the nun already charged for him with her staff raised. In a visibly calculated fashion, the archer stepped aside just in time for her to miss him and before she could react by striking sideways, he lunged forward and in a swing too fast to follow, cut the sleeve of the dragon's robe open.

Startling her enough to nigh jump backwards. "What?" Dasher didn't respond. He just kept a close eye on all of Faith's movements, while never dropping his smug expression even as time went on. "Just wait, sinner!" She tried the exact same thing again. A vertical swipe with her bishop's staff, and again, he dodged it with ease. Followed by him cutting through the fabric along her upper arm. "The nerve!"

After this, she adjusted herself to grab her staff from further down, charged the backing-off human's way and put the strength of both her arms into an overhead smash strong enough for the staff's tip to crack the stone floor beneath where Dasher had just stood a second ago.

After he dodged and stepped back though, this time, his attack on the dragon left Faith flinching and grabbing her shoulder at the spot where he cut her. He must have cut more than just her clothing this time, and when she took her hand off of her shoulder, there was indeed blood on it. "You dare! Curse you! Why are you so silent anyway?"

He didn't do so until he was several steps away from her. "Maybe if you stopped talking and concentrated, you might actually hit me for a change."

She didn't listen to him. "Stop moving!" She just kept trying over and over. "Hold still, try measuring your strength against mine, weakling!" She struck for him with her staff time and time again, and time and time again, he dodged every single attack. The harder she tried to hit him, the deeper a wound he cut on her right afterwards.

And as time went on, her movements slowed down. Wounds and fatigue were wearing down on her and everyone noticed. Even Faith herself did. "By the angel!", she bellowed under heavy breaths, bleeding from several wounds on arms and back. Trembling under every breath. "How can one who strays so far from god, not fall to his vices?"

He made sure to get to a safe distance before he answered. He could, now that Faith was struggling to even stand. "That's rich, coming from someone who serves the Knight."

"Your 'Heroes' are not pure! They're deviants! They could never be true opposition to the dark forces at work."

"So because they aren't pure enough for you, we should all lay down our weapons and let someone even worse than them reign supreme?" Dasher wasn't smiling any more. "You can mislead Temptress like this, but that won't work on me."

After taking some time to recover, the nun bore her teeth at him again. "What would you know? You aren't pure either."

With newfound vigor in his voice, the archer taunted her. "If the path of 'god', the 'pure' path, is to serve Temptress and the Knight, perhaps your god is a false one, and his path is the path to damnation."

"How dare you?" She was angry. Angry and wounded enough to be in tears. Angry, but not in a condition to fight, and yet she tried anyway.

Once more, she raised her staff, pushed herself to run his way, and strike at the floor beside him. While she did, this time, Dasher did things a little differently. He dodged the attack in the opposite direction. When her grip on her staff loosened a bit, he seized the moment to forcible push it out of her hands for it to fall on the ground, and pressed the base of his blade, still essentially a sword albeit a very thin one, against her neck.

In her surprise, a gust of fire escaped her mouth and she tried to direct it onto him, but he wouldn't let her lower her head enough to do that, without pressing her neck and lower head straight into the blade. Then he restrained one of her arms with his free hand, and forced her to lie down on her back.

When he was sure he could, he placed one of his boots on her stomach to hold her down, grabbed the golden cross hanging off Faith's neck and ripped it off. "Admit defeat. And excuse me if I take a trophy." Something about their conversation was getting under his skin, but with a prize for his victory, a mischievous grin crept up his face. "Perhaps I can smelt this and turn it into something of value."

Kris came closer, with a face devoid of expression and simply told him: "Stop."

To say that Dasher looked troubled, would have been an understatement. But he eventually readjusted, placed the other arm at the dragon's neck to keep her pinned down, and rammed his foil into the ground, piercing straight through her side. "This is for Temptress." It was only after getting fully stabbed like this, that she finally gave in to the wounds and stopped struggling.

While he got up, the prince rushed closer to pacify her. And after the archer, albeit begrudgingly so, pulled his weapon back out of his opponent, the prince proceeded to heal some of Faith's wounds.

"What is it with you and Temptress anyway?"

From the way he sighed when he heard Kris ask this, the archer didn't like how to the point he was being. "Some of us are closer friends than others. Temptress was from our closer circle of friends. Seeing her turn on us like this hurt." He didn't say more than that, he just ventured forward up the linear staircase, up to the doors that led outside.

With Banger left to be the only conscious Susie present, Noelle came along to give Dasher his hat back. "Kris, I don't think he wants to talk about it." If she said so, it was probably true. Even though to him, it seemed like this was important.

The rings for handles the doors atop the stairs had, were heavy. Everyone helped grabbing and pulling the open. And even once it was open, when they left, they left right onto the flat stone ramparts of a flat rooftop, within a dark cavern. Diagonal tunnels led to more sets of entrances to the castle, spread all around these ramparts.

But rather than just ending at its outer edges, the roof led straight onto a busy square outside of the cave. Along the stone reinforcements on the outer edge of the roof, a barbed wire fence was erected. There was broad gate leading to the city, but it was closed and guarded by two strange creatures with plastic helmets and sunglasses.

One was a man made of cylindrical pieces of wood. The other was a person made of grey metal, and a ridiculously large portion of his whole body consisted only of his pressed-together legs, which were thinner and thinner towards his tiny feet. "Freeze!" More of them came out of a nearby booth next to the gate, opened it, and came closer to the party.

A glance off to the side revealed why. There was a sign next to the gate. Drawn on it, was a simplified sketch of a monster face with a round, purple snout and most of its eyes covered in brown hair. It was encased in a red circle, and an equally red line crossed out the Susie face diagonally. A very clear 'No Susies allowed' sign.

Everyone who came their way through the gate, came either with a sword or a crossbow. "Hands where I can see 'em."

They were here to stop Headbanger from entering. "She's nice, she didn't do anything."

"I said hands where I can see 'em." After a more stern reminder, they all carefully raised their hands. One of the wooden people came up to Headbanger and urged Kris and the others to give him a little space. He gestured for her to give him her guitar, which she did. Once he had it in his hand, he turned it around a bit and inspected it more closely before handing it back to her. "False alarm, it's just an instrument."

"An instrument of DEATH?" one of the other officers asked.

The one originally checking slapped the back of his helmet. "A music instrument. Now. Can I see ya without those glasses?"

She followed suit and removed the shades, and after a mere five seconds of the wooden man looking her in the eye, he backed off again. "Seems fine, clear!" As soon as he went back to the gate, the other security made way for the party and pulled the gate open all the way for them to walk through.

This was all strange, to say the least. The square was entirely made of stone, not concrete. As were all the buildings. The monsters passing through here and there were wearing simple, hand-sown clothes and short trousers, there were no elecric street lights and the vehicles that passed through were old-fashioned chariots, more befitting somewhere in the renaissance than anything about this fence and the people that guarded it. While they all awkwardly passed through, Kris couldn't help but stop and ask one of the metal men: "Why does a city like this have border controls?"

"Perhaps I can answer any questions such as this one." Behind him, having just arrived with a chariot while they passed the fence, another person came their way. He looked different from both kinds of people that guarded the fence. He was a monster, seemingly, but not really.

His face was that of a goat, but he wasn't a boss monster. He had the face of a regular, feral goat, with the exception of his horns being perfectly straight cones pointing diagonally to his upper left and right and his ears unlike the floppy, straight-downwards ears of a boss monster, hanging slightly down to his left and right.

He wore a shiny, bright red uniform with golden buttons and a green handkerchief looking out of a pocket on the right of his jacket as well as a hat that matched his uniform. His chariot was unusually large, almost like a fully sized, modern recreation vehicle except shorter and taller, due to it still being an old-fashioned chariot, with another goat man holding the reins of the horses strapped in to pull it.

"To answer this question right now, the Journeyman had this fence built after a bloodthirsty succubus drove away all the others for us and warned us of more dragons attacking if we didn't keep them out."

Kris figured that the enormous J that was built onto the side of the chariot and was big enough to cover as much of its side as was possible, stood for 'Journeyman'. What he was less sure about was: "So what's a succubus?"

The stranger pointed at Headbanger. "Why, dragons like your friend right there of course. Come." He went back to his chariot, up a small set of extended stairs and held the door in the lower half of the 'J' open. "I'll explain everything else on the way."

Kris was a little hesitant at first, but after he went ahead, followed this person and took a peek at the inside of the chariot, he waved for the others to follow. There really only was this one man and the one handling the horses. The inside was really comfortable. Every inch of its interior was put to use.

There were beds that were soft enough to double as couches all along both sides, exempting what little room the door encompassed, and accessible through a ladder-like set of stairs, there were two more rows of couch-beds up above. Headbanger couldn't wait to climb up to lie on her stomach on one of the upper ones, leaning her head on her elbow to lazily follow what happened below.

Dasher took the other side up above, leaving Kris, Noelle and Ralsei below with their host. "First of all, greetings." He shook everyone's hand. "I'm a page, I work at the Journeyman's tower."

"I'm guessing that's where we're going?"

"Precisely. Please, make yourselves comfortable." Opposite from the entrance door, there was a window, which he sat in front of. He shuffled to the side and pulled the curtains open to reveal the grey streets of a stone city. With monsters of all kinds walking along the stone bricks that made up its pavement.

"Welcome to Bedrock. The city beneath the mountain. Heart of the Kingdom of Taint. Anything a visitor could need, food, shelter, arms, potions, protection from succubi, you will find it here."

He had to stop the page right there, and raised his open palm to do so. "Yes, the succubi. Did you just say a bloodthirsty dragon drove all the others away?"

"Oh right. That was right after we first came here earlier today. They were roaming and causing mayhem all over. Before we knew what was happening, they had occupied Fortune's Keep and driven the last of us out of it. If it weren't for another dragon doing the same with her fellow dragons here, we wouldn't have had anywhere to go in this kingdom."

"What did she look like?"

"She was armed. Short sword and a shield, armor. But we weren't quite sure what was going on at first, because other than the armor, she looked just like the other succubi."

"A knight?" Noelle was a bit quick to jump to conclusions.

"No." Dasher, having made himself as comfortable as Banger, stared down at the shaken-up doe. "The Knight was a lot of things, but he was certainly a him and he certainly wasn't a dragon, at least his helmet looked nothing like he was one. This is someone else."

After that, the page continued. "Oh, and she was mad, really mad. Apparently she had unfinished business with someone called 'Beauty'. She couldn't go one minute without talking about wanting to kill this 'Beauty' person. So she told us she can't protect us forever since she was heading off to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that unless we do something about it, the other succubi are going to overrun the city all over again. So we took her advice and put up a border fence to keep them out."

Kris gestured towards headbanger with his open hand. "Not much of a border fence if you just let her in."

The page scratched his head. "Yeah, we agreed to handle it a bit on a case by case basis. And she came along with you guys and you guys seem fine enough. You've got to understand. Security must have mistaken her guitar for an axe or something, so they were extra careful at first."

"And the Journeyman? Who is he?"

"Oh, he's a travelling merchant and a jack of all trades, he's pretty quick to take over any place he gets to. Not barring this place either. This city doesn't have an elder or a mayor or something, so if you want work, he'll be the best address. And if you made it out of Fortune's Keep in one piece, you must have slain a lot of dragons to get here, so he'll want to talk to you. A dragonslayer is the best thing short of actual lightners to help us."

"Actually...that...we're that as well."

The goat's eyes widened with enthusiasm. "Really?" Kris pointed at himself and Noelle. "This is even better! I am confident that you will sort this out. We're almost there anyways. And there we are!" They stopped at a crossing between roads. They could see their destination from inside through the window. It was a tower that reached almost as far as this inconceivably enormous cave did.

At the very top, it was adorned with a giant golden 'J', and below, neon signs lined its front. They depicted a simplified cartoon image of a widely grinning, human face, the kind of human face you would see in newspapers a lot, usually accompanied with a headline that screamed of tremendous offense being taken on the part of the author. The face came with a moving neon sign of a hand pointing towards the face with its thumb, and below, the words 'All around the world, Baby!'.

"All around the world?"

The page was a bit embarrassed at this slogan being brought up and tried to laugh off his embarrassment. "The Journeyman prides himself with his eagerness to travel around every realm he visits, so he likes to advertise that he's traveled around he world."

Behind the golden doors at the base of the tower, were more people in uniforms like those of the page and the coachman. Some were goats like him, some were those metal men with long arms and short legs, some were golden women with extravagantly wide, golden skirts and some, made of wooden rods like one of the ones at the fence. The page led them to an elevator, covered in gold like the front door.

"Ahem." Dasher was generally a little slow in coming into the tower, and all the more hesitant to follow the others into the elevator. "I think I'll stay down here while you talk to the Journeyman."

"Actually..." The page left the elevator again, walked around the archer and first slightly, then with increasing force, pushed him towards and inside it. "...Mister Jay gave me express instruction to bring you to him if we ever find you again." The archer's breaths turned a little irregular and even when everyone had settled for a place to stand in the elevator, he chose to uncomfortably recline in the corner.

When the bell announced their arrival and the doors open, the page rushed ahead through several close-together, but open doors, and another page, standing guard, gestured for the party to follow him with a friendly smile. "Mister Journeyman, sir! We found a dragonslayer! And he's a lightner, too!"

A familiar, but unexpected, croaky voice responded to him with surprise. "Really! Then what're ya waitin' for! Bring 'em in!" They were being led into an unreasonably large office, the tables on which were all stacked to the brim with literature and statues, art and trinkets from different parts of the light world.

Whether it was the far east, the west, or the southern peninsula of the further middle east, any part of the light world, as Kris knew it, that had anything of value to offer in the vein of art and sculpture, had something from it lying on the tables or hanging on the walls. It was like being at Berdly's house all over again, but taken to an extreme. Behind the desk, stood the man that matched the voice. A human with an unnatural, orange tan, and bright blond hair.

He had the folds of an old man, but he lacked the weakness you expected to come with it. He was dressed in multiple layers of thin silken garments, with various patterns covering each layer and threads of gold woven onto all of them. Noelle was startled and almost greeted him by a title he probably didn't have. It still took some getting used to for her, to remember how the dark world worked when it came to art and custom card designs.

It was clear that this wasn't who he looked like, he was a fictional character she made up, whether or not she did so consciously. As soon as they arrived, the Journeyman came right up to them and shook everyone's hand before going back behind his desk. "Hey there, guys. Dasher. Welcome to my tower. I'm the Journeyman."

Kris carefully raised a finger to then point it at the merchant. "Let me guess, the name's because you travel a lot?"

The Journeyman began smiling as widely as he did on the neon sign and pointed at himself with both his thumbs. "All around the world, Baby! All around the world! Looks like you're already gettin' how this works. So I'm guessing you're the dragonslayer."

"No - no, we didn't actually slay any..."

He had to admit in hindsight, was being a little too meek with this correction, as he was cut-off mid-sentence. "Nonsense, kid, ya gotta take credit where credit's due. If my guy's right and ya made it outta Fortune's Keep alive, obviously you musta slaughtered your way right through dozens of succubi to make it. Hundreds even."

He leaned over his table and pointed at him multiple times. "That's dragonslayer material right there. Perfect. It's great. It's exactly what we need right now, cause things are lookin' bad. Real' bad. This realm's a mess. And it's a good thing ya brought this guy right here." In a more dismissive way, he pointed off to the side, where Dasher was not so much standing as hiding behind Headbanger's back and guitar. "...'cause he's the one that made this mess. Maybe he could do a thing or two to sort it out."

"So why do you call them succubi anyway?"

The merchant nodded in an overplayed fashion. "Good question if ya don't know." He pressed a button on his desk, and when he did, a panel in the clean white ceiling opened up. From within, a flat screen almost wide and tall enough to cover the entire back of the office, extended itself downwards. "Maybe only use half of it."

He made some adjustments with a remote control he picked from the table, and the display switched to limit itself to about half the height and two thirds of the width. "So, this girl right here..." When he pressed another button, it switched to a digital slideshow, but apparently, the picture showed the three basic Susies Kris and the others had encountered in Fortune's Keep. A Grunt, a Berserker and a Mistress.

"Wait, that's the wrong one. I hate prepared presentations, but ya can't just draw photos on the fly, right? Ah, there we go. Here's Veritas." The next picture he switched the display to, was what Kris expected hearing that name.

It was Susie, but as a Roman legionnaire. With layered stripes of shiny iron armor wrapped around to thoroughly cover her chest and shoulders, a bright red skirt below leaving the rest of her legs bare, an a helmet with a bright red crest. And to complete it, a long cape in a red that matched her sleeves, skirt and crest hung over her shoulder. She was armed with a gladius and a long, red tower shield, which had intricate patterns painted on its front. There were more dead Susies lying in the background, so Kris could only figure what happened to the Grunt in the front.

"She's a great gal! Little on the unstable side, but when the kinda stuff happens that happened to her, I guess that's par for the course. Veritas cleared out all the succubi from this city. It's safe again. For now. Reason they're called succubi, is because before she left, she told us a lotta stuff about them and what the Knight wanted 'em to do, that we didn't get. The name came from us trying to make sense of it. I'm guessing since you're lightners, he was planning for this whole place to be some kinda trap for you. Since you're right here, it looks like it didn't quite work out that way."

"What do you know about the Knight?"

"He's - I'm not sure, he's weird. None of my guys ever got close enough to talk to him. They say he's got some hot girls slammed right onto his armor, but stuff's always strange around him. See for yourself." He picked up his remote control and switched to a different slide, showing only a vague, humanoid 'something'. "Nasty guy. Can't take a single good picture of him. No matter how sharp the image, it always comes out blurred. And a lotta magic, 'specially if it's utility stuff, just stops working around him."

"My golden doors!" burst out of Ralsei. "That's why I couldn't summon them in the castle! Does that mean he was there with us?"

The Journeyman shrugged. "Guess not. The Knight's gone now. Temptress is on her own, but that leads us to her." Again he switched slides, this time giving them a clear photo of Temptress floating above an army of succubi. The picture was taken from behind her, but the antlers, the long blond hair and the red dress were more than enough to tell it was her.

Going by the angle, it must have been taken from the rocks above the coast, between the sea and the city. "That's where the real trouble starts. We can deal with the succubi. Keep 'em outta the city, everything's fine. I'm not sure what you guys know about dark fountains, but every realm's got one, and whoever controls it, rules over the whole realm sooner or later. For this realm, ya do that through something called the 'Throne of Achievement'. Up on the Terrace of Divinity above the Kingdom o' Heaven.

And that's where Temptress comes in." Now with much less a cheerful mood, he nodded Dasher's way. Kris had trouble reading people, but Noelle could tell the merchant's tone was was somewhat...scolding. "So what did ol' sunnyboy over there tell ya about him and this girl?" And accordingly, Dasher took off his hat, for his blue feather to not draw more attention and cowered a little further down behind the dragon in the back.

"That they were close friends."

That didn't lighten up his mood in the least. "Mhm. Close friends, huh? Well they were a little more than close friends. And we were all gettin' a little crazy lately, but she got hit the hardest. He was gonna fix it, but lil' sunnyboy was being a bit of a scaredy-cat. Isn't that right?" Dasher said nothing. "Anyways, so she gets impatient and 'course, one 'bad boy' comes her way and she's all eyes for him. It's like everything before never meant anything to her."

He switched back to the blurred picture of the Knight. To Kris, this all sounded tremendously familiar, except for the part with falling in love with the Knight. "Now she's out to trade our trust and friendship for an empty shot at some crazy guy in a suit of armor. She's makin' the worst trade-off in the history of trade-offs. My guys picked up that she's settin' out to try and get her hands on the Throne of Achievement to use for the Knight. If she can corrupt that throne, we got a whole lotta other trouble comin' our way. You gotta stop'em. Ya gotta."

"Wouldn't we have to get to that terrace first?"

"You can worry about the terrace, once ya've reached the Kingdom o'Heaven. There's a whole ocean between here and there, but that's why I know what lil' romeo can do to help fix this mess. I'll give you my chariot. He can operate it."

The prince stepped forward and placed on hand on the table. "The wooden chariot we came with is going to get us past an ocean?"

"What? No, that's nonsense. My Chariot. My real 'Chariot'. That'll be so fast, all the head-start she got won't matter. She's sailing, so you'll catch up in no time anyway. You're gonna see once you get there. It's up in the Fields of Despair, on top of the rocks that make up this continent. Right on top of the city, too. My guys can give you a ride up the cliffs. Or you take the shortcu - . On second thought, don't take the shortcut. Bad idea. But first, if there's any time to prepare for your trip, it's now. Once you're on the Chariot, there's no goin' back."

He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a piece of paper with a few addresses on it, which he gave to Ralsei, since he was the closest one to him at the moment.

"I got a few places for you to pop by. For a start, you're gonna wanna visit the Drakeforger in her temple. She contacted us and told us if any lightners come through, she wants to talk to them and only them. She's a great gal, and she's been around long before the succubi. You can trust her. If there's anyone who can tell you anything ya gotta know about dragons, it's her. Then there's my wife. Since it's not like I can rely on Dasher to get anything done, I want you guys to take along my wife, so she can keep me posted on what's goin' on."

"We got lotsa friends over in the Kingdom o' Heaven. She can get you in touch with 'em, while I stay here and make sure the succubi don't pull anything here. She'll be performing in a restaurant called the 'Sinwielder's Den' right about now." That name sounded familiar as well, but for different reasons.

"Aaand..." He pulled up another piece of paper, a list of some sort and mumbled a few bullet points. "Knight, Veritas, Succubi, Temptress, Throne, list...yep, that's it. That's all I got for you guys. If you turn around that list, you're gonna find some phone numbers to call if you need directions, I got guys set up for everything. A lotta stuff can go wrong, but logistics isn't gonna be the issue."

Kris came closer to Ralsei to get a closer look at the back of that list, and the prince looked up at the merchant. "Thank you. For all of that."

"Nothin' to thank. You guys are the ones with all the work. Ya got anything else I can help ya with?"

As if he was in class, the human raised his finger. "One of us needs a weapon."

"So you're looking for a blacksmith. Blacksmith, blacksmith. There we go! Got one for ya. And a few stacks o' cash for slaying dragons on your way here." He handed Kris a case full of dark dollar bills and the prince a small scrap of paper. "Tell him I sent ya. Whatever you need from him's on me. And don't forget the map. Bedrock's a big place, gonna need that to figure your way around."

Once Kris had made sure they had everything, including the map, he gave the merchant a thumbs up, and after their goodbyes, they were all back in the elevator and on their way to the ground floor sooner than they knew. Now with a whole list of places to visit before they were ready to set out to travel overseas.


	19. The Chicken Dance

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 07

la danse des canards

* * *

They found themselves at the base of the Journeyman's tower, with several places to visit, and no clue, which one to go to first. Kris and Ralsei led the others ahead. Even though, they were currently wandering into the city, aimlessly. As soon as they were far away enough from the tower, for the smoothed out tiles to stop and the bumpy stone ground to start, the city went back to what Kris' first impression of it was.

Wooden stands and stone buildings with wooden window frames, chariots and carts were drawn along the streets instead of cars, there were no street lights short of an occasional short and wide pole with a torch affixed to its top. The other people walking the streets were a blend between those four new kinds of Monsters or other darkners that he had never seen before coming here on one hand, and monsters on the other. And the city were a blend of its own.

Some of it was new and unknown to him. Some of the streets were ripped straight from pieces in his art stash, down to every detail. Even the wooden stands were in the same locations and some of the Monster passerbys were the same ones. In fact, it sometimes felt like this whole city was just made by taking his sketches for medieval city roads, adopting the rough, colourless grey aesthetic and constructing an entire underground city based on it by filling the blanks between the source material.

The far-away ceiling above glittered, sometimes almost creating the illusion of stars.

The others were following Kris, but he wasn't really leading them anywhere. And he was pretty sure Ralsei and Noelle were getting a sense that he didn't know where they were going either. "Hey." On one of the many crossings at which he stood, clueless, mostly inspecting what lay along each road, he was interrupted in his train of thought by Noelle pulling at his arm. "Before you get too caught up in where to go, why don't we just look for a place to unwind. It's been nothing but tension up until now, let's relax while we can."

He wasn't sure if relaxing was a good idea, if they were essentially in a race for getting to a place he didn't even know how to get to yet. But like she said, and the Journeyman implied: If there ever was a time, it was now. The Susies were the enemy, and the one place you were safe in, was the city where Susies - or succubi as they were apparently called, weren't allowed. He would have given a lot for a place like that, back in Canyon City.

He turned around and went to a specific location that fit the occasion, that he passed on the way to the blacksmith. He wanted to go back to a previously passed road, because he recognized a specific place there. And right where he recalled it to be, there it was. The 'Tavern beneath the Stars'. Or at least it might have had that name, if there were any real stars above them.

It was a picture Asriel had helped him with. It was one of his favourites. You immediately recognized his brother's influence on the design, by the field of green grass embedded right next to the open inn, with several tables standing outside. It had no wall to the side where the lawn was, so you could walk right inside and to the counter or any of the tables without passing through a single door. A breath of fresh air in a maze of closed-off stone walls that made up the rest of Bedrock.

As soon as it came into view, Noelle and Ralsei understood that this was where they were headed, and the two tag-alongs from the castle followed without question. What confused him him a bit while walking up to it, was that unlike what he expected going by the picture it was from, there were no guests. None. All the other streets he recalled, stayed true to their original at least to some extent.

He would have understood a few of the guests not being there at this very moment, or being swapped out with others. But none at all being here? That was a tad strange to him. The only person present, was the inkeeper standing behind the counter. A light-brown or orange cat, just reaching his twenties, who was definitely not inspired by an ICE-E's Pezza employee by the name of Burgerpants.

Going by the look not-Burgerpants was giving their group of five, walking in here must have been so crazy to him, it was as though they were walking on their hands and balancing plates while they did. "Welcome to the tavern beneath the rock. What can I get you?"

Kris wasn't interested in ordering anything. Not yet. Instead, the first thing he asked was: "Why aren't there any guests here?"

"Kris!" Scolding him with her soft voice, his classmate gave him a slight nudge with her elbow. He was used it. He knew that usually, she would next go on about how you didn't ask questions like this in a restaurant. But she also knew that he knew what he was going to say, as they had gone through this routine often enough one way or another, so she spared him with it this time.

Not-Burgerpants raised an eyebrow and his face deformed to allow him to raise it further than otherwise possible. "You don't know? Well gee, no surprise you just wandered in here. It's been a little more than a minute, so it's gotta..." He just stopped mid-sentence and proceeded to stare at his watch. And he stared, and he stared and...

"PLEASE, NO MORE! NO!" The teeth-grinding screech of a familiar voice in severe pain dug its way through the veins of everyone present. If Kris wasn't absolutely sure that it couldn't be Berdly, he would have been convinced that it was.

Suddenly, the disturbed expression on the cat's face made a lot of sense. He dangled his thumb to the side, outside, to one of the buildings on the other side of the lawn. "That's why. It's driving away all the business."

Kris thought about what to do, but he didn't take long to make his decision. "I'm going to go and ask what's going on."

After he had already turned around to make his way outside, he was pulled back by his arm. Apparently, Noelle didn't agree with his decision. "You can't just walk up to people and talk to them like that." Yes he could. "No you can't. Come on, let's just look for another place." No, he was not going to let his favourite tavern run out of business, just because someone wouldn't stop screaming. He pulled himself free of her grasp and marched onwards to the street. "What if it's dangerous?"

"Just stay here then." He didn't have enough patience left to stay any longer and went on. This city was safe from the succubi, he could leave her alone...with a succubus. Just to be sure, he turned around to check on them, but Headbanger and Dasher were already off sitting on the benches around a table in the corner. Okay no, they were fine.

Stunned at a lack of tactfulness she very well knew Kris had, his classmate turned to the prince. "Aren't you going to say something? He listens to you."

Her pleas for her strange form of 'reason' were only met with a confident smile. "I trust Kris. He knows what he's doing."

"Kris? Really?" She didn't even know what to say to that, so she just sighed.

She then noticed that not-Burgerpants was still standing in front of both of them, his eyes darting back and forth between her and Ralsei. "So uh...can I get you guys something? Maybe? Anything?"

"Some light wine for me. And a hot chocolate for when Kris is back."

"Wine? Isn't that a bit much?" Noelle wasn't sure whether that perplexed her more, or the fact that Ralsei already knew Kris well enough to know what to order for him. "I mean if we can, some light wine for me, too."

Dasher raised his hand from their bench. "Two bottles of wine for us, too." The man behind the counter placed a wine bottle and two glasses on the counter and then fetched another glass and a jar of chocolate powder. They had chocolate powder in a superficially renaissance or pre-renaissance city made of stone. Not to mention that he then turned around, slid the door of one of the cupboards behind him aside and revealed a microwave. "Chocolate will take a minute or two."

Instead of sitting or standing at the counter while they waited for Kris and his drink, they took a seat on a nearby table. When they did, when they finally sat down after walking and standing non-stop since half-way through the castle, and finally not having the threat of Susie-look-alikes attacking them from some corner, it felt to Noelle as if a huge load of weight was taken from her body. She just sunk into the sofa with her eyes closed.

And even afterwards, she only spoke with breaks in-between sentences. "I'm sorry for reacting that way, this is just - it's a bit much. I'm just not used to Kris being so - I'm sorry, I'm not even sure how to put it."

She was alone in this though. Ralsei didn't appear fatigued at all. "Nothing to be sorry about. Just go ahead. Or take your time. Tell me what you mean any way you want."

Soon later, she inhaled, was wide awake again, but only enough to lean onto the table by her forearms. "It's just that he really isn't like this. Usually. Just a few weeks ago, me and my father invited him over to play a few games. He spent every minute he could, staring out of the window or otherwise zoning out. He wasn't paying attention to the game at all. Or me or Dad for that matter. Kris doesn't socialize, and even if he does, it's not...if his brother isn't around, it's as if he wasn't either."

"He's not that kind of person. Not without Asriel. And yet two days ago, out of the blue, he gets left alone with Susie, comes back unharmed, and then starts talking to me all of a sudden and says Susie of all people is nice. They were never on good terms before that, if any at all. Susie is the last person he'd call nice. The only person I can see him like less is Berdly. Then yesterday, he was paired up with him, and today, he's sitting at one table with both Berdly and Susie, exchanging stories about a 'dark world' like it's nothing."

Again, he didn't share in her confusion like she felt that he was supposed to. He was glad to hear what she told him. "What's so bad about that? It sounds like a big improvement."

"I know, it's just - " She cleared out her mind. He was right, in a way. That was what she wanted, it was a good thing, or it should have been. What upset her about this? And then fixated Ralsei. Stared right into those white glowing ovals behind his glasses. "It's you. How long has this dark world thing gone on? How long have you and Kris known each other?"

Those ovals shifted down and to the side. He was unsure which of several possible answers to give. "I've been - three days. Today is the third time we met."

That only riled her up right again. "Three days. It took years make him comfortable with me and Dad and he just skipped all that with you in three days. You're always next to him, you're so close, he doesn't back off when you make physical contact, sometimes, I caught him just making eye-contact with you, just like that, and he's only known you for three days. How? This is nothing like him. Is it because of your name?"

"I don't know what to say. Why don't you ask him that yourself? Don't you think he'd tell you?"

"I'm..." She stared at her empty wineglass. "I don't even know. The whole art thing is a side of him he never showed me before."

"While we're at Kris. Can you tell me more about him?"

Well that came a bit out of the blue. "What?"

"Anything. I failed to ask Berdly when I had the chance. I don't want to miss that chance with you. Just tell me anything about him you like. I never met him in the light world. I want to know what kind of person he is."

The way he said this, and the way he lowered himself and looked up to her with anticipation while he did, something about it made her ease up. She couldn't suppress a chuckle and covered her buck teeth out of embarrassment. "All right. What's there to even say? I didn't know he liked to draw. I had no idea until today. But he plays the piano. That's something I knew. His favourite colour is purple. Or blue? I'm not sure, sometimes it's purple, sometimes it's blue. He's a bit inconsistent about it. Maybe it's something in-between."

"He likes long walks through the forest, but only if he's walking alone. I know because I ask if I can come with him sometimes, and unless he gets the sense that he can't, he declines. He likes being on his own. At least when his brother Asriel isn't around. The way he's with you - he's only like that when he's around his brother. Or - he used to be. I think you remind him of Asriel. What with the way you look, and your name and all."

She expected that to sully his excitement, but his smile never waned, he just kept following every word in a trance, leaning with his head on his arm, not from exhaustion, but for lack of focus to sit upright. "You really admire him, don't you?" When she said that, the prince's eyes shot wide open and he retreated just a bit into his robe and pulled his hat over his face to cover up his glowing cheeks.

To make things worse, while he stayed like this, Kris came back from stopping whatever that noise was. But rather than joining them at the table, he only asked the innkeeper to give him all the bread he could carry, and once he had it, he left right again. Once he was gone, she leaned forward to push that hat back and reveal more of Ralsei's face again. "I don't think he heard anything."

"Heard what?" Noelle barely noticed Dasher and Headbanger, until they stood right next to her, urging her to shuffle aside for the two of them along the bench that curved its way around the table and along the wall. When they sat down, they really spread out making themselves comfortable. Both held an entire wine bottle in their hand and Headbanger's was already half empty. "So? Where are we headed next anyway?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. He didn't talk to us either. But say." She shook Ralsei a bit to pull him a little out of the little hideout that was his robe. "I don't know anything about you. It all went under a bit down there. We never got to know each other."

The prince occasionally glanced down at the table. "There isn't that much to tell. I'm a prince without subjects. Well, that's not true any more. I have one subject now. But I want to keep him a surprise for Kris."

"But how are you a prince then?"

"Well, I don't have subjects. But I have a kingdom."

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to make of this. "Even if. Wouldn't that make you a king?"

"There's no need for 'if'!" He got up and walked outside. On the grass between the outside tables, the prince turned to the side and stretched out his arm and pointed at a wall on a nearby building with his open palm. Out of nowhere, within his hand, a bright light emerged. It glowed at first in white, then in multiple colours and in a spiral motion, shot towards the wall. "It's working! I can summon my doors again!"

Slowly and still in disbelief, Noelle followed him outside. On the wall, where the light must have struck it, a 'patch' or black stone grew on the grey bricks. Along and beyond its centre, the triangles, circle and wings of the Delta Rune grew in solid gold and once the black stone stopped covering more of the wall to the left and right, golden filaments of a similar shade to the symbol extended themselves all around the eventual doorframe like vines.

"Woah." The dragon girl and the archer had followed them, and she had to take her sunglasses off to be sure she wasn't imagining things. "Like, did you really just do that?"

"Yes. I couldn't back in the castle. Something kept blocking it. But let's not leave Kris behind." It took less than half a minute for him to come back. Whatever he was doing, it didn't take that long apparently. "So? What were you doing?"

Kris stared at the door with an unsure expression. He hesitated before answering. "Making sandwiches." And he left it at that, too.

* * *

Kris had rather he didn't have to go into detail on who was making these sandwiches or what kind of person he was. When he was already across the street from the tavern beneath the rock to check or ask what that noise was, he turned around one more time to check if Noelle was fine. She was sitting at the table closest to the counter with Ralsei. Any worries were for nothing.

One last time, he heard the screams that not-Burgerpants was talking about. Much louder and more clear, as it came from much more close by now. It came from behind a metal door in a niche two metres further down. Below and next to a butcher shop. He had to take another staircase into a little yard to get to it. Behind it, entered a hallway with rough concrete walls. Metal pipes ran along the ceiling between the rooms that surrounded it.

The rooms he passed were all dedicated to processing cattle or something like it into edible meat. Carcasses hung along pins in a row along a rail, which extended itself through several machines in another room. Another room was a kitchen, with ovens, deep fryers and other utensils. But the screams were coming from a room further ahead. All the way at the end of the hallway. From behind another solid metal door. It must have been so loud for people to hear because of the doors being wide open.

They looked pretty thick and good for warding off the sounds. When he pushed it further open, finally, he came across something familiar. Not something he expected, but in hindsight, he should have. The door led along more stairs, down into a basement. A stone basement with blotches and spatters of red blood all around the walls.

Loose metal chains hung off the ceiling, a range of torture instruments lay spread out on a table at the other end, and axes, spiked clubs, a chainsaw and other murder weapons hung in an open cupboard to the side. In the middle of the room was a rack. One of those medieval racks you used to keep someone in place by binding and stretching every hand and foot separately, to torture them more easily. And tied onto it by his wrists and ankles, was Berdly.

Well, probably not the real Berdly. He had blue feathers, wore the same kind of shirt he always wore at school, even with a pen still in his pocket, but there were tears all over it. Tears and within them, wounds. And unlike how this should work with an actual monster, he was bleeding out of the open wounds that covered not only the holes in his shirt, but his whole body from head to toe, even parts of his face besides his cracked beak. He was whinging and whining between his panicked breathing, terrified to no end to the one who put him in this state.

Kris stared at 'Berdly's torturer. The torturer was Kris. Well, not the real Kris. He was 'Kris' the same way that the bird was Berdly. He only looked like him, and his colours and clothing were what he usually wore in the light world. This other 'Kris' was perhaps a few inches taller than his original, and slightly hunched. He had a curved knife in his hand, with which he probably inflicted those wounds on his classmate.

He guessed as much, because the knife's blade was all red with the bird's blood and smidgens of more blood were in all kinds of places on 'Kris's dirty sweater.

And rather than his messy hair casting a shadow that obscured his eyes, the area around and above 'Kris' eyes was downright blacked out. There was no shading or graduation, the yellow just straight up blended directly into pitch black where his eyes should have begun. The only thing you could see behind his bangs, even right against the light of a running light bulb, was a bright red light glowing from where his right eye should have been.

The torturer had stopped his craft and stared right back at Kris. He recognized this. All of this. This was a drawing. All of it. This whole scene. Everything, even the chains. It was something he once made at home, when he was particularly annoyed with Berdly. Something he sometimes really felt like doing in real life.

Which was also why he had a really good guess at what his titular doppelganger's name was. With narrowed eyes, he subtly pointed down at him. "Butcher?" He paused to check for 'Kris' reaction. "Butcher, is that you?" The torturer didn't answer. Not verbally at least. But after waiting to see if Kris had any more to say, he then just nodded.

Kris' eyes shot back and forth between the wincing bird, and the motionless human. He had to be careful what he said or did. This darkner might have been violent. Very slowly, he raised his finger. "I'm not sure how to say this, but..." He pulled back to look down the hallway one more time. "...I'm here with a friend who scares very easily. So I just wanted to ask: This..." He circled the injured bird with his finger. "...could you tone this down, just for a while?"

No answer. He threw his hands up in a defensive manner. "It doesn't have to be for long. We'll be gone soon and you can go right back to..." He circled butcher-Berdly again. "...to this." For a few seconds, Butcher just stared at him. When he began to move, Kris almost got ready for battle, but he movement was just him nodding. Then Butcher walked over to the table in the back. He put down the knife and picked up a cleaver and walked back to Berdly.

Every single step of what he did, was a bit slow. Including the part where he grabbed Berdly's head by the feathers at its top, held his head up a bit and stretched his neck, and then swung down and chopped at it with the cleaver, again and again, until enough of it was cut off that he could rip the rest of the blue bird's head off and place it on a nearby chair.

Well, with his head chopped off, at least Berdly wasn't going to scream any more. So Kris gave his now blood-smeared lookalike a meek smile and a thumbs up, which Butcher answered with a silent thumbs up of his own.

Berdly's corpse just lay there, lifeless. He wasn't a monster after all, this one at least wasn't. Kris closed the door and made for the exit. He stopped and froze for a moment to listen closely and make sure that Butcher wasn't following him up the stairs. But he wasn't. So he took a deep breath in through his nose, and exhaled, letting all worries escape him with it. He expected much more danger from Butcher than there ended up being.

He had a similar drawing by the name of 'Slasher'. If he ran into him, there just might have. At least in this case, what Ralsei said about darkners wanting to serve lightners proved true. He even would have gone as far as to conclude that all his drawings were somehow more receptive to him than other darkners. And likewise, Butcher looked all kinds of scary at first, but in the end, he was nice and friendly. Just like the Grunts, Berserkers and the others.

It took him until he was already back outside in the below-ground yard before he froze. He had an idea. He spurted back inside, down the hallway and pulled the door open. "Wait." When he looked back into the basement, his lookalike was rested on a chair next to his late captive's head. "Are you an actual butcher? I mean a professional one, with preparing and selling meat and all that?"

Butcher nodded. So Kris stared at Berdly's motionless body for a while. "So uh...if I brought you a load of bread, could you make a load of sandwiches? Ham sandwiches?" Butcher nodded. "I mean sandwiches you can eat. Clean? Edible? No diseases?" Each time, Butcher nodded and eventually got up to follow him upstairs. Kris quickly backed off, but the human-like horror just opened the door opposite to that to the basement.

It was a closet with more sets of clothing identical to his, but not sullied with blood and dirt like his. He took off his shirt and trousers and the next time Kris looked back while moving closer to the exit, he was already wearing a new, clean set of clothes. He then came closer, turned around to walk off into the kitchen to wash his hands.

He really was just getting ready for business, wasn't he? "So I'll just fetch the bread and you'll get to work, right?" Another thumbs up. "Right. Be back in a second." This was all working out a lot more smoothly than he feared.

Without further ado, he marched across the street, into the inn and asked the innkeeper: "Can you sell me some bread?"

As usual, the expression on this cat's face projected what he could only assume was disbelief. "Yeah? Sure. How much?"

"All the bread. If I can carry more, I need more."

"Okay..." He went around the corner into the room in the back. The kitchen, Kris assumed. And he came back with a wooden crate, turned into a basket by removing its lid. Filled with short swirly loafs of bread and with more of it stacked up into a pile in the middle. "There ya go, buddy."

He paid what he guessed was just a rough estimate on how much that bread was worth rather than an actual fixed price, as well as the bill for the drinks the others had ordered, and got right to carrying the basket outside and down to Butcher's workshop. "There." Happy with his precarious journey down the stairs having gone without casualties, he put down the basket near a part of the workspace in the kitchen, that wasn't occupied with stoves or other devices.

"That should be enough for plenty of sandwiches for when I come back. If it's not enough, you can buy more from the guy across the street, I'll pay for them." One last thumbs up marked Butcher's goodbye before Kris left the workshop for good. This time, by the time he returned to the tavern, the others were already standing on the lawn, gazing upon a golden door Ralsei had conjured up on a wall right beside the inn. When asked what he was doing, 'Making Sandwiches' was all he told them.

Taking his act of summoning a door to it into consideration, the darkners present weren't so stirred by what lay behind the slowly opening doors. But the imposing city of arrow-shaped buildings, the black stone, all illuminated behind each house's windows with bright blue, completely overwhelmed Noelle.

Several times, while wandering through her irregular breaths made Kris turn around to check on her to see if something was wrong. But it was just her marveling at Ralsei's kingdom every time. "Wait, stop." Half-way through, the prince begged Kris to stop and rushed ahead. He opened the door to one of the buildings further ahead. The 'Inn', going by the sign that hung down to its side. Then, after a few moments, he wandered back with his head hanging down. "Sorry. He's not there right now. But his door is."

"What door?"

And right again, he was smiling with his glowing eyes wide open. "It's a surprise. Kris! My kingdom isn't empty any more. Someone lives in it now."

"Who?"

"I said it's a surprise." The prince's noticeable excitement over the thought of showing Kris his first subject made Noelle giggle. So unlike what he was looking forward to, he went back to one of the houses on the way to these and unlocked the door. It was the house they used yesterday, as a place for Berdly's sister and her plastic doll turned-living-stewardess to stay. "Come on in. You're more than welcome to."

For the most part, Noelle was astonished at how warm it was in front of the blue burning fireplace and how soft the couch was. Kris and Ralsei wandered right past those, to open a chest right beneath the window on the side of the building. Time to have a look at the old inventory and to see what of his current one he could fill, since quite some of his cake from last time was used up.

One by one, he picked out and inspected the stuff inside the chest to see if they could put anything to use now. There were some old fluttery pages from the old manual that he had to destroy to make space for more stuff to fight Jevil with, a dark burger left over from fighting Jevil, which he never ate and that had gone bad more than it already had two days ago, a left-over amber card, a white ribbon.

Wait. Noelle wasn't wearing anything on the outside but her robe. They could actually put those to use. He got up, walked over and gave them to her. "Stick that on. And that's for you, too."

She was a little unsure at first, as that both came out of nowhere. But when placed on her sleeve, the amber card just latched onto it without problems like a sticker. As for the ribbon, she kept it in her hand and stared at it. "Thank you?" She was confused at those sudden gifts.

"You don't have to put it on if you don't want to."

"No." She got up and followed Ralsei to the window to look at her reflection. "That's not it." She gave herself a close look and tied the ribbon onto a strand of her hair. "I actually like it." But she still had trouble getting used to her face in the mirror being dark blue. The crass change in colour was a little too much for comfort. And any normal person seeing her deep green hair back home would have assumed she saturated it with hazardous hair dye.

"Great!" Kris accompanied the prince's enthusiasm with a thumbs up. "Come with me!" He grabbed Kris by his left arm with both of his own, and dragged him out of the house. "I've got another surprise for you." He didn't stop or come back to tell Noelle and the other two to follow.

That and something about how excited he looked when he did it, told Noelle that he probably wanted that surprise to be between the two of them. Without further ado, he pulled Kris along the street past the window and to the castle. Leaving Noelle alone with Dashed and Banger.

With little else to do but wait out Kris and Ralsei alone time, she went over to the comfy chair beside the couch and sat down, facing those two strangers. In spite of only knowing each other for such a short time, they were leaning against one another. Headbanger only held one of the wine bottles she had brought along, stared up at Noelle's antlers and took a sip from her bottle. The other one was standing on the table in front of them, next to her feet.

They were both sitting there with both shoes or boots on the table. Now that Kris and Ralsei were gone, she was here, with a stranger, nigh-identical to the way Susie looked in school. She knew how to spend her time waiting until that lonely plush of a friend Kris had, was done being alone with him. This was her chance to practise talking to Susie some more.

But sitting down on the comfy chair, she already felt the nervousness take hold below her neck. Whenever things were eventful enough for her to have something to say, she was always distracted from Headbanger. She was always either talking to Kris, or this adoring fan he left with. But now, she was facing her, and the thought of talking directly to her, scared her all over again.

The only thing that lightened that up a bit, was the fact that she didn't have to worry about having to look her in the eye through those monster shades she was wearing. She took long enough with her internal preparation, that both the human and the dragon already gave her a weird look by the end of it. She suddenly felt how stuffy and sticky her robe had really been all along in its entirety and tucked at it here and there to allow for some air to breeze through. 'Hey there.'

That's what she tried to say, but only a little squeak came out. So she tried again. "Hey there." Oh goodness, they were both looking at her. She had shade-Susie's full attention. If this went on for much longer, she was going to snap after all. She just had to do what kept her calm this long. She tried concentrating her attention on Dasher, rather than Headbanger, to take some of the pressure off of herself. "You two seem to be getting along pretty well."

"What can I say?" Laying back with both his arms along the lean of the couch, Dasher turned slightly to Headbanger, enough for their cheeks to touch. "We have a few things in common. We both lost something that was dear to us. And we both take solace in hoping that you can guide us through this somehow."

When he placed his feathered hat on Headbanger's head, the dragon girl took another sip from her bottle and 'woo'ed loud enough, the whole neighbourhood would have heard it through that open front door - if there had been one.

That didn't help at all, that made it worse. Noelle tried to coat how this sounded to her with nigh hysterical fake laughter. "No pressure at all, you two."

"Sorry. Your other friend seemed so confident about it." She could see how he could be hard to read for someone who didn't know him like her.

"I've never...this is all still new to me. Kris has been to the dark world at least once before. I think he's been twice. Once with Berdly and once with Su-...Su..."

The tipsy dragon interrupted her and pointed at her with her bottle still in the same hand. "So what about the light world? Tell us about the light world. You guys always seem kinda - clueless? Aren't you guys like all-powerful...or something?"

All these expectations and strange ideas they had only made her force out nervous giggles and shrink further together, all while inching further and further into the confines of her seat. "I - no. Not really. That's not how it works. I don't think so."

"Then how does it work? What's that stuff about light blue guy..."

Dasher nudged her. "Kris."

"...Kris being responsible for me and all the dragon girls? Religious girl paid no attention to you. So if you're not responsible for us, are you responsible for anything in the same way?"

That...wasn't a question she was comfortable answering. She scratched her cheek and avoided looking at those black stars above Banger's snout. "It's uh...that's a little personal."

"Really now?"

Headbanger was immediately nudged from the side and scolded for her attitude. "Let her keep it to herself if she doesn't want to tell you."

"Wait!" Before Dasher could do her this favour, Noelle threw up her hands. She didn't want this to end with a sour note between her and the closest thing to Susie there was around here. "I'll...I'll tell you as much as I feel I can. Okay?" To her relief, the corners of the nodding dragon's mouth pulled back up a little. "So." She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment to collect her thoughts and pull herself back together.

"Imagine a little girl. She's still very small, and can get scared very quickly. Anything big and dangerous-looking, especially if it has big, sharp teeth, scares her so much she can't move. She's lucky her family lives in a big house in a town far away from too many people like that. But more than all the dragons and sharks and other scary-looking monsters, that little girl is deathly afraid of one thing: Humans. Humans scare her so much, they give her nightmares."

"The bare, leathery skin, the round ears the general form of their faces." She involuntarily gritted her teeth in-between sentences. The mere memory of her past thoughts made her skin crawl even now, if only a little bit. One of the two right in front of her having all those things didn't do much to prevent her short relapse into old, long-past fears either.

"And of all the things, that little girl's best friend is a human. The girl and the human's families spend so much time together, at times, you could barely tell we were separate families. It was as if we were one big family."

With a raised finger, Headbanger cut her off. "Wait. Lemme guess. By the end of this it's gonna turn out Kris is the human, right?"

"Let her tell her story the way she wants to."

"Dude, we're not little kids." She was losing her patience.

"It's alright." Noelle noticed that Dasher was about to raise his voice a little more to reel their friend in, and he had already taken his arm down from behind her back. She didn't want this to become a spontaneous quarrel without Kris and Ralsei to keep it under control. "I'm sorry. It's my fault for being like this to you. Where was I? Yes. Kris' family and mine were really close, because our Dads were best friends from college."

"So of course me and Kris spent a lot of time together when we were younger. We've been friends and seeing each other on the regular for as long as I can remember. And I was able to keep it in. Just barely. I mean, it always built up and when I was alone, it always hit me all at once, but it was bearable. Being a little scared of humans is normal for a deer monster. And I kept most of how bad it was secret from my parents."

"But Kris is...he's a bit difficult sometimes. And he's always liked playing little pranks on people. He found out about my fear of humans...maybe. I'm not sure if he ever found out how bad it is, but he caught wind that it's there. Some tricks he tried work on me better than on others. He always got a rise of convincing me of scary things being real. At times, I couldn't sleep because I was afraid that there was a human under the bed or in the cupboard."

"We spent a lot of days staying at each other's homes overnight, he must have heard me talk about it at some point. So sometimes I'd wake up, I'd worry about there being a human under the bed, and then it turns out there really IS a human under the bed. He'd hide under the bed or in the cupboard, just to jump out and scare me. Even when he wasn't over, I sometimes spent entire nights sleepless because I was so terrified of a human popping up somewhere."

"That's when my Dad realized that it isn't just a little natural fear of humans, I had a problem. Thinking about it now, it's a blessing in disguise that Kris played at my fear so much, because I can't spend all my life in hometown. I've got to go to university some day, and there will be tons of humans there. I'll have to commute, share cars, buses or trains stuffed together with humans."

"But Dad realized I had a problem early on, so he told me to take up a hobby that helps work through that fear. Something that involves looking at humans, even if it's just pictures of them. And we found something that could ease my way into that. Cards. Playing cards. Wherever humans go in the world - well, the light world - they bring different suits of playing cards with them."

"And they always involve pictures of humans on them. In some suits, only on a few cards, in others, more. That was something I actually came to enjoy. I was so fascinated, I started learning the rules of all kinds of card games. They were a first baby step, but they always kind of stayed with me as a hobby. So when I grew older, I took the next step. I dabbled in learning to draw. Specifically how to draw humans."

"It forces you to look at them very closely. Even today I do it occasionally. Only humans, but still. So then...uh..." She began retreating into her robe and her clear narration slowly turned into mumbling. "...I...combined the two..."

"Speak up!"

She had to oblige, so she sat back up and pulled her robe down. "I combined the two. I...things happened. Personal things. Things I don't want to talk about." Thinking about it made her blush, and almost tear up a little but she caught herself before that could happen.

"They're in the past now. That's what matters. Designing an entire set of cards is a huge effort. So I never took it on until there was an occasion. A good reason to invest so much effort into one silly little project. At least, I thought there was going to be an occasion. Those 'personal things' gave me a reason. So after I had developed a routine of using tarot cards, I made my own."

There was a silence between both sides for a while. "So, how does that relate to anything?"

"It's uh - " She was sinking back into her chair again. But in the end, all she had to do, was check for the door to make sure Kris wasn't listening, and then speak with a lowered voice to get it out. "I had help with most. But for major arcana at least, I came up with every design and drew it myself. And some of them may be people or - things we ran into on the way."

"Like what?" She stared at the table and twisted her thumbs. "Oh screw you!"

"We've been pushing her enough." Dasher tried prying the wine bottle from Headbanger's hand to place it back on the table next to the other one. And he succeeded, but she just picked it back up. It was soon empty and left her to go for the second bottle anyway. "She outright told you there are things here that she doesn't want to talk about."

"Yeah, whatever." Apparently frustrated over Dasher 'turning' on her, the dragon put down the empty bottle, picked up and opened Dasher's full one, and shuffled away from him and turned around to rest on the sofa with the bottom of her shoes laying against the archer's formerly clean trousers.

Dasher just let her, rather than further aggravating his new friend. Instead of paying more attention to Banger, he pulled his feet back to put them on the ground and sat upright to level with Noelle. "So 'tarot'. You used that word at Fortune's Keep. Is that the same kind of 'tarot' you're talking about now?" Noelle didn't look up, but she nodded. "I see." After that, the room fell silent.

All the way until finally, Kris appeared in front of the door. He stood straight, with a mood not at all in tune with the awkward silence he trampled in on. He put his arms together behind his back and opened his mouth wide. Ralsei excitedly tiptoed after him, with a plate with a slice of brown cake in one hand, and a spoon with some of said cake in the other.

The glow of his cheeks was at odds in brightness with the fire that illuminated the house. His eyes were shot wide open and his hand was trembling a bit, too, as he brought the spoon to Kris' mouth and held it in place for him to close it around the spoon and peel off all the cake and eat it without lifting a finger. "So." he proceeded still with a spoonful of cake in his mouth. "Did I miss anything?"


	20. A link to the past

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Draconic Fortune

Chapter 08

A link to the past

* * *

In the deepest, darkest recesses far beneath where anyone sane or ordinary dared tread, so deep, so endless, one could not gaze through the depths beyond where the last safe plateau ended, one person, as old as most of the life in this realm, wandered along the ledge. She had spent a long time wandering. With no means of measuring how long she had been down here for. With no-one to ask to fetch her one either.

There was no howling of winds, no dropping of water off a stalactite to its neighbour below. Just the several times reverberating aftermath of her own steps against the cold rock. Other than that, the cave was in complete silence. She was alone. She was alone here despite her standing, because she was venturing down here, at risk of losing her way, all in search of something that may not even be here, anywhere, to begin with.

She had searched and searched and long ceased to believe it was anywhere, or that she would find it. She only kept on because she had grown tired, and the thought of calling it off and turning back felt like a chore of its own.

Perhaps it was chance. Perhaps fate. Or perhaps, if she was to ever find it, it was most likely to happen on the stage of her search that covered most of the ground by multitudes. But she did spot something. A faint glow, far along the way. When she came around, she realized to her dismay, that this glow came not from a spot further along the cliff, but from a slope down on the wall opposite from where she was. With an endlessly deep, black pit separating her from it.

What surprised her more, albeit less unlikely than finding what she sought, was that now that she had possibly discovered what she was looking for, she was not alone any longer. Mere metres away from the most convenient spot settle and attempt to reach her target from, two strangers sat at the edge of the cliff.

With their feet dangling off the edge over the abyss. Gazing off onto the wall on the other side and holding hands, but with empty, absent-minded expressions on their faces, as if they were either not fully aware of it, or as innocent as they were young. And they were very young. Budding youths, at most. About half-way through their adolescence. Perhaps less.

One was a dragon like herself, but an addition of some blue separated the colour of the unaware stranger's scales from her own mauve tone. And where other dragons, the dragons of old, prided themselves with the span of their wings, the strength of their horns or the length of their tails, this one was as unlucky as most of the more recently emerged dragons, and was gifted with none of those things. And her rounded, clumsy-looking face only made this sight more bizarre to her than it already was.

But that was not what confounded her, what did, was the appearance of the other one. It was a little boy, about the girl's age, with smooth skin like that of the angels sealed away when the lightners abandoned the Kingdom of Heaven. But the light blue of his skin within the darkness could have deceived the untrained eye into thinking he was glowing. His face looked so soft, so - it was devoid of the tells of someone used to danger.

It instead had those of a very sensitive person. Very easy to break, very easy to injure. What would someone like that see in as ferocious and wild a creature as a dragon? Let alone an ugly morsel like that? She chuckled, gazing at them from afar. At least their hair matched in some way. Unkempt in both cases, left to grow wildly, so that you couldn't see half their faces.

Contrary to the impression his face made, it appeared he usually wore armor, but he had taken off the plates and dropped them around himself and the girl, leaving him only in a smooth, pitch-black garment wrapped skin-tight around his body, exempting his hands. And the girl he was with, had done similar to him, and taken off her coat, to sit there with her upper half dressed in nothing but a shirt. In both cases, an inappropriate way to dress considering how cold it was down here.

She felt bad about interrupting this baffling moment between them, staring at a stone wall together, but that spot next to them was too perfect to fit her purpose to pass up. And the opportunity too enticing. Even when coming closer, the light on the slope glittered in many colours, and at its core, emanated the light blue glow she had read about. The better a look she had of it, the more it looked like it was exactly the thing she was searching.

She felt bad about interrupting them, but if they enjoyed staring at a wall this much, they could make do with a different wall if needed. Even so, she didn't have to barge in on them, stomping them into shock on every step. She slowed down. Moved closer with very careful steps.

It was something she always took pleasure in doing. Sneaking up on her visitors to test their perception. See how close she could get without getting spotted. But on her way, mid-step, she was startled by the sudden impression that she was being attacked with a wave of sorts, surrounding her. She almost stumbled because of it. But when this fraction-of-a-second-long shock wore off, the truth proved more bizarre than a sudden attack by unwitting youths.

Her surroundings had changed, completely. The darkness she was used to all her life was gone, she now saw the red of the dust and the rocks that made up this plateau. In the distance, where previously there was only rock, pine trees had appeared. The ceiling and the wall beyond the cliff were gone. Replaced with a sky. An actual sky down here, and not pitch black like the sky she knew.

Right above her, when she glanced straight up, a circle of mild blue shone down, but it was littered with thinned-out clouds that reflected the bright red light that filled the sky to all sides. The source of the bright orange light all around them, was a singular object in the distance, far, far beyond where the wall, and thus the end of the cave, should have been, and had been, only moments ago. A blinding, round light, exactly where the youths were staring.

It was so low, a part of it had already vanished behind the mountains, far off in the distance. What had happened? What kind of magic was this? Was this a portal? Was she transported to a vastly different location? No, that couldn't be. The young ones were still there, and their strewn armor plates and jacket were still there as well. It was everything other than herself and those two, that had changed.

It was so sudden and so much, she tripped and nearly fell over. She was lucky to catch herself just in time not to. "What was that?"

To ere further confusion, both youths took a few moments to even register her question. "Hm?" And when she found herself getting stared at by a pair of mops, who didn't appear to understand what she was talking about, it dawned on her that perhaps they were not aware that localized illusions such as this one weren't that common. Or that it was there at all.

"Pardon me." She kept her distance and proceeded on to where she was planning on going. "Forget that I said anything. Don't mind me." Right where she took off and dropped her backpack just as planned, a lone oak tree stood, only feet away from the edge of the cliff. A lonely tree, but with a solid foundation. She couldn't have asked for something more convenient.

It was almost too convenient, so she felt up the bark a few times and even pulled at it in a few directions to make sure the tree was really there. It wasn't here before, so it must have been part of the illusion. What was strange to her though, was that even here, where everything around them looked entirely different from just before or outside what 'this' was, the light was still visible.

The fragment she didn't believe she would ever find, was still there, lying on that same ledge below a second cliff right opposite from the one they were on. And that ledge, albeit much further away from the two at the centre of what this was, was changed in the same way, complete with a little tree on the side.

All the less of a reason to let any of these oddities get between her and the still not processed, unfathomable luck she was having. Out of the various tools and contraptions she had brought along for her journey, she took out a long, and strong rope. Strong enough to hold her weight with ease, even under duress, and bound to its end, a steel grappling hook. Custom-made to lodge itself into rock well enough to hold even someone her size.

She secured and bound it to the tree on this side. Now she just had to toss it with enough force and in the right angle. With everything ready, without further ado, she took the rope, began spinning the hook in the air to gather momentum and eventually broke its circular motion to launch it to its destination. It hit the plateau, so the rope was long enough. She just had to get it to actually bore itself into the rock surface.

She tried launching it with more momentum. And she got it far enough to take the rope to its limit, but it just wound up lying on the surface with its pointy ends all looking upwards, not inside the ground where they were supposed to. She tried again, but varied a little in her movements from the previous attempt. Nothing, again. It didn't strike the ground with the pointy ends and thus slid along with no sign of friction when she pulled it back for her next attempt.

She tried again, and failed. And another time, and failed again. This couldn't be happening. She had a case of luck normally comparable to winning the lottery on your first ticket and now that her chance was so close she could see it taunting her with its sparkling light, she failed at grasping it in spite of her preparations. She wouldn't let it wear on her resolve.

She had come down here so many times, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of hope that one day she would get lucky. Now it was here. She had come too far to back out now.

She tried telling herself that in her mind. But with each attempt, she had the creeping suspicion that it wasn't supposed to happen. She had grown so desperate, both to succeed here, as well as to convince herself that she could, that she didn't even notice she was being watched until that had been the case for quite some time.

Both the human and the welp he was with, were staring at her. Both with equally obscured faces, both in complete silence. She tried ignoring them, but a few attempts after she decided to, she noticed they wouldn't stop. They were staring at her and not in a way she would have liked. Eventually, she couldn't keep herself from breaking the silence between them. "You two appear rather attentive, is it that entertaining to you?"

The staring continued. For lightners knew how long. It took a while until the dragon girl answered. "What are you even doing?"

The confusion on the younger dragon's part was actually a breath of fresh air to her. Of course she wouldn't know, seeing as an illusionary sun captivated the two of them for so long. "Don't bother yourself with me. I'm just trying to reach that light over there."

She pointed at it, and for the first time, the two actually paid attention to it. Its bright blue shade within the glitters was all the more visible against the sandy rock, coated in the red light of an evening sun. "As soon as I can reach it, I'll be on my way. Don't worry about me. I'm sure I'll make it eventually." She wasn't convinced that she was telling the truth here.

And from how measly her next few attempts were, with the hook not even reaching the opposite surface before sagging into the cliff half the time, she was lying indeed. And she was so focused on her growing embarrassment, she barely noticed when the boy had gotten up until he stood right beside her. "I told you not to worry, you just stay over there with your friend."

He looked up at her, he had to look upwards quite a bit just to be able to see face to face. He was barely half her height. Even when she knelt down to level with him, he still had to raise his head to face her. And he held out his hand, with his open palm facing up. "Oh my, so eager to help?" Now, the attention didn't feel half as bad. It actually put her in a rather playful mood. "Well how can a lady say no to that?"

In a smooth motion, she wrapped her hands around the shoulders of his little nigh-bare form and moved in a little closer while slowly turning him. "All right, if you want to show us what a helpful little boy you are, I need this.." She showed him the pointy ends of her grappling hook and continued whispering in his ear. "...to be lodged in the rock on that plateau over there. It has to penetrate the rock, and it's not done unless it's deep inside."

The moment she touched poor boy even with only one hand, his body turned stiff as a lamp post. For having sat over there with that welp for so long, completely relaxed and without any issues, this human sure was very uncomfortable with physical contact. "No reason to be nervous. It's okay if you're not experienced. I failed so many times. It doesn't mean much if you can't do it either." From the way he stirred when he faced the light after that, she almost thought he had never noticed it was there until now.

Luckily when she let go of the boy, he relaxed again. Once ready, he stepped a little closer to the edge of the cliff and examined the platform on the other side a little more closely. She was waiting for him to swing it around like she did. She didn't expect him to make it, what were these tiny blue arms going to accomplish that her own couldn't? But he didn't. His head only tipped up and down ever so slightly, as he spent an enormous amount of time examining the cliff and both ends of it.

To her surprise though, he turned around and walked back away from the cliff. With the hook still in his hand. "Where are you going?" Silent as always, he simply adjusted the hook to be safely in a solid grip with his hand not holding the end of it, but the base, so he was most sure to not let it go. He didn't stop walking away until he was quite a bit away, a few metres behind the tree even.

When he did though, one last time, he made sure he had a solid grip on the hook, and took up a stance that implied he was going to come back fast. And he did. He began running. Straight towards her, past her, to the edge of the cliff, and then with quite a stretch for an approach before reaching it, leaped over the cliff towards the other edge.

She wasn't quite a ware what he was planning on doing until it was already too late, and when she realized it, her heart skipped a beat. The realization shook up the girl enough for her to get up and run to where she stood as well. The boy soared straight across the cliff. Apparently with a force she certainly didn't expect from small and frail legs like his own, as he actually made a lot of headway.

Then, counter to her fears, he actually made it. Almost. He reached the platform on the other side. Just enough to grasp and hang onto its edge with his left hand and to use the hook in his right hand to help him gain some hold. He made it. Somehow, this crazy boy made it across. Now all he had to do, was pull himself up to get some safe footing.

But that was exactly the part he seemed to struggle with. His grip wasn't enough to hold on. His hand slipped off the edge. The hook helped him leverage himself back up to pull himself up, reach to the surface and onto as much of said surface as he could grab. His hand swung right over and through the light she was doing all this to get to. But after that, what little rock he had managed to dig the hook into, gave in, crumbled off and left him with nothing to hold onto.

He slid right off the edge of the cliff. The two dragons quickly tried pulling in as much of the rope as they could to soften up his fall, but it was too little, too late. The boy fell down, into the depths, and when he reached the end of the rope, his fall already put too much force on his hand for him to hold onto the hook.

They were too slow to save him. She could feel the moment when the boy reached the end of the rope and had his hand forcibly pulled off of it. She couldn't see it happening, but she could feel it with her hands.

"No! No, no, no, no, no, no..." The young one, after a few moments of denial, fell silent again, and soon began staring into the abyss, sniffing from time to time to keep her nose from running. And moments after the boy was gone, slowly but surely, the bright light that filled the illusion that surrounded them, shrank together towards its epicenter, which lay over at that platform on the other side, where the boy had fallen down.

He was the one creating this illusion. Whether he was aware of it or not. And now, he was gone and the fantasy they shared, with him. He was gone. Not only was he gone, but the light, the reason she was here, was gone as well. He apparently grasped it and claimed it for himself, just before falling into the abyss. Possibly without a clue of what he was tapping into.

Both inside and outside the mirage of a sunset at the edge of a forest, the cliff was so deep, you couldn't see the bottom of it, if it even had one. There was no way for him to make it out of there and find something to eat, or water. It was too deep to survive. He must have died. Besides, what else could she think? She never saw the boy again after that. Never. Not once.

That was, until tonight.

* * *

"So what is it?" The prince had led Kris into the castle, up the stairs and to the exact same place at the exact same table they had settled down, the last time they were here. And he didn't give him nearly as much time to take in and examine all the details of his home. "So?"

"Oh, right." Apparently, he had zoned out for a second, staring at his guest with his hands put together, but when woken up from it, he went right to the kitchen and came back not long after. "Here it is! Ta-da!" What he put down in front of Kris's plate, was something strongly resembling the 'Ralsei cakes' from last time. Except on this one, all the colours were swapped for different tones of beige, brown and black.

In particular, 'Ralsei's face, usually pitch black, came in brown here. And when Kris peeled a tiny piece of it off to taste, he vocalized his delight when he realized that it was milk chocolate. Going by that, it followed that the glasses, eyes, mouth and scarf were made of white chocolate and the hat, black as night was made of plain chocolate. It was better than just your every-day Ralsei cake. It was a chocolate Ralsei cake. "So you like it?"

"Yes." A single word evoked a bright smile on the prince's face. And without further ado, his visitor took his spoon and started digging into it at a rate unlike when he ate anything in the light world. In no time, it was all gone, and the prince had to rush back to the kitchen to fetch the next one.

And his eyes widened quite a bit when he saw how quickly that one vanished as well. "Goodness, Kris." He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe some left-over chocolate from the side of Kris' mouth. "I'm flattered, I really am, but could you please try to savor them?" Once he had brought along the third cake, when Kris was already about to bury his spoon in it to shuffle out an exorbitant amount of it, he pulled it back.

It only then dawned on Ralsei, that Berdly had understated how much Kris liked chocolate. He couldn't control himself around it. He figured that he had to ration it to make sure Kris would savor it. He didn't have as many of the chocolate ones as he had regular cakes.

So instead of giving him the entire next cake, he scooped out one spoonful and placed the spoon on Kris' plate. "So, do you really like it?"

And now that he only had a spoon of it, his guest took his sweet time to put the spoon back clean of any bit of chocolate. "A lot." They took their time, unwinding and recovering after their long trips, but by now, Kris felt it was time to get up and get going again. "How much chocolate cake can you bring along?"

The prince smiled and fumbled around his robe. From within, he pulled a bag. It was similar to the one Kris had, both on the outside, and the inside. It had separated compartments, 'inventory slots' as Ralsei called them, within it. "I can put an extra cake in each one of those." A thumbs up from his guest was all he needed to rush to the kitchen to stuff cakes into his bag and then come along for the two of them to get ready and head downstairs again.

Down, past the courtyard with the intimidating fountain in the middle, and back outside, they stopped for Ralsei to lock the front doors with a swing of his hand. I one hand, the prince carried an extra cake on a plate, in the other, he had a spoon to feed some of it to Kris on the way. And he could tell that something about him changed. Kris was stepping forwards faster, with stronger steps. Overall, with more energy.

Down the road they marched, to the house they left the others at. Inside the house, when he arrived, it was quiet. Headbanger looked as mysterious as ever, taking a swig from the second bottle. Noelle was staring at the empty table, and until a second ago, Dasher had been staring at her with the inner corners of his eyebrows raised. "So." With a single clap, Kris put his hands together and had another bite of Ralsei's cake spoonfed to him. With a full mouth, he went on. "What did I miss?"

Noelle took some time before she looked his way and the corners of her mouth pulled themselves up. "It's nothing." When she realized he was just staring at her, she tried to reassure him. "I'm fine." He didn't really get this impression, but if she said so, he trusted her to be honest with him.

More determined than before, Kris pulled out the map the Journeyman had given to him. "I now know what order we visit these places in. Let's go." But before he turned around, he froze up and opened his mouth for another bit of cake. When he realized that Noelle wasn't following, he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up until she stood on her legs, and then led the way outside and down the road.

Once she caught up with the others, Noelle half-stumbled up to Ralsei while Kris waited in front of the great door with the map open. "What's gotten into him? What did you do?"

The still flustered prince shrugged. "I don't know."

"Ralsei! Chocolate!" Kris immediately called for him to follow and keep feeding him while he went on. "Our first stop is the blacksmith. We leave you there with Dasher and Headbanger, so you can look after her and she has plenty of time to choose a weapon. Me and Noelle go to the temple, and then we all go to Sinwielder's Den together."

With an invocation from the prince, the door opened. They all marched right outside and waited for Ralsei to close it again and to make it disappear before they got into trouble over it. "Wait!" When they stood before the vanishing great door, the shorter human turned to Noelle. "This is actually a good opportunity."

"Opportunity? What for?"

"Summon your weapon." She couldn't discern anything particular that she expected in his expression. He just plain said that like it was self-understanding. "We're now on our own. Just try." She stared at him with no idea what to do. "Just do it. I don't know. Imagine the weapon. Maybe imagine fighting? Susie just sort of had hers when Lancer showed up and Berdly - wait that's it."

Out of nowhere, he summoned his sword, raised it and stood right in front of Noelle, and had the sharp blade surge straight down her way. She shrieked, and stepped backwards with her mouth agape. She didn't defend herself, but what she suddenly had in her hand put a smile on the human's face.

She was supporting herself on a wooden rod, a five foot long staff, with little twigs and the rings left behind by pruned-off smaller branches along all its length. Its top was covered in thorny brambles that were wrapped around the tip several times over. It took her a few moments to realize she even had it. Would you look at that, all it took was a little scare. Of course, a staff wasn't really going to hurt anyone too much, but it was at least something. "Where did - how did I do that?"

He wasted little time to explain it. "At least you have a weapon now." And to his positive surprise, on their way outside and through the streets, her staff didn't disappear either. She just kept it with her like that. Which was probably a good idea, since she might have had trouble summoning it again on the fly.

Venturing through the stone streets, in-between the pentagram banners at every crossing, with a regular supply of chocolate, he marched through Bedrock with much more conviction. He now had it all figured out. And granted, there were some troubles. Especially the two whole bottles of wine Headbanger had been downing gradually taking effect as they navigated through the convoluted layout of the city.

He was a bit worried that they were going to get into trouble, seeing as they were in a city where everyone already was a bit on edge regarding dragons. And before they arrived at the blacksmith, they had a noticeably drunk dragon girl on their hands, roaring and bellowing "WHEEERE'S THE BLAAACKSMITH?" at random strangers with the full force of her vocal cords.

Both humans held her by her elbows to prevent her from getting too close to any of the often bizarre commoners of the city. One group of golden women with golden corsets and petticoats, almost had one feint before they drew away, from the conspicuous group of adventurers, hiding their faces behind their handheld-fans as they did. Even the younger of the two was upset enough to pout at her. "If you keep screaming about the blacksmith, we're going to skip him, okay?"

Banger was just laughing at how riled up she got them with her behavior and tried waving off their concern. "It's cool dude, don't worry, I'll stop." But as soon as they stopped paying attention to her, and they got close to another stranger, she started right again. "WHEEEEEE..."

They were running out of patience with her, so both Kris and Dasher reached for her snout with both hands each and pushed it shut by force. He continued leading them to the blacksmith. He was so glad over the short break from Banger's antics. He gave Noelle a questioning look. Waited until he had her attention, and then glanced at Banger and she understood what he wanted to know. "She had about two and a half litres practically all at once, it's a bit much. But she's pretty big. It can't last forever." Here was to hoping.

It wasn't that far any more anyway. Soon enough, they arrived at a big stone complex, built into a wall of the city, with a big neon sign like that on the Journeyman's tower reading 'The Blacksmith' Kris was sort of expecting a normal forge with a blacksmith, not a stone shopping center entitled 'The Blacksmith'.

But in spite of the impression the front made, on the inside, far behind halls lined with broad assortments of melee weapons as well as bows and crossbows, there was an actual forge with someone hammering at a glowing piece of hot iron. The actual person at the forge was a grizzly bear monster wearing a leather apron, busy with forging what looked like a two-handed sword going by the length of the blank he was holding. "Well ain't that a colorful bunch?"

He had a hoarse voice and spoke up enough to be sure to speak over the sounds of his forge, while putting the iron to he back where no-one could run into the still hot end of it. Then he took off his gloves and came around to reach them before they got too close to the forge. "So what can I get you guys?"

The smiling dragon inhaled and already began anew. "THE BLA-" This time, Kris and Dasher reached over to her and held her snout shut fast enough for her to not do this again.

Once the leader of the party was sure that she wasn't going to roar any more, he turned to the blacksmith and answered. "We're going to fight the leader of the succubi. And she needs a weapon for it."

The grizzly's eyes merely darted back and forth between Kris and Headbanger. "You sure? Doesn't look like she's in much of a state to fight anyone."

"We're going to make it work somehow."

Perhaps out of habit, his classmate stepped closer to 'translate' the blacksmith's expression for Kris. "I don't think he's convinced."

"I'm not. But okay. If you guys can pay for whatever you're buying, who am I to complain? Come on, let's take a look what we can get ya. So a weapon for a succubus. You thinking brass knuckles? Broadsword? A whip?" The blacksmith continued to lead Headbanger along the racks that lined the walls, filled to the brim with weapons of all kinds.

When he did, the remaining four formed a circle. "So." Kris raised his finger to draw their attention. "Chocolate." One last time, the trembling prince stuck a spoonful in Kris' mouth. "You two stay here with her."

He assured himself that Dasher and Ralsei knew they were being referred to before going on. "Just make sure she doesn't break anything and don't get anything too crazy. The real Susie had an axe in the dark world, so - you know - that's a safe bet." Before they separated from the darkners, he had Ralsei give him one extra cake and a spoon.

He trusted Ralsei to take care of Headbanger, even though the prince was very hesitant to let Kris walk away without him following him. But it was better that way. Despite everything, Headbanger was likely as strong as Susie, so it would take two to keep her under control if something happened. And without her, there were much less distractions. And there was much less need to look out for cars here than anywhere in the light world, as there were no cars. Only chariots, and those moved a lot more slowly.

Off to the side, when they were so close they could already see the tall, weirdly coloured pillars of an enormous temple stick out of the grey of the city like a sore thumb, Kris spotted something that caught his attention. "What's wrong?", Noelle asked. A reasonable way to react given that he didn't just stop like this for no reason before. It was one of the lights. He had passed, and purposefully ignored and skipped several of them since that first one.

Now that he knew more about the dark world in his and Asriel's room, and how things would go for the two of them, he had second thoughts about his previous idea to skip all of them. With how they were everywhere, he wouldn't be able to keep Noelle from seeing the Susies, regardless of what steps he took to try to do so.

And now that he knew where Ralsei was, he had a much better point to go back to if something happened later on. Not to mention the fact that he was in a pretty tight spot when fighting the Mistresses. He was tempted, and he acted on that temptation to approach it. "Where are you going? The temple is right there." In spite of her actually pulling at his shoulder on his way, he marched straight to the light. "What's gotten into you?"

He packed away Ralsei's cake before turning to Noelle. There was no compartment left, so it was dangling loosely outside of them. He hung as much of his hair over his ears as he could, grabbed Noelle by both wrists and looked her right in the eyes. "All right, this is important."

Of course, she couldn't see the light, so she had little idea why he went this way, stopped where he stopped and suddenly addressed her after ignoring her just before. "O - okay?"

"We are going to make it back home, I promise you. At some point, we're going to be back home, we're going to go to school and it's all going to be like nothing happened."

She was just all the more confused at where he was going with this. "All right?"

"We're going to go to school and Susie is going to be there - probably - as usual. Can I trust you?"

For a moment, she tried pulling his right hand off of her arm, but after glancing at it, looked back up at him without doing so. She could tell that he was being very serious. This wasn't the setup to a prank, she knew him well enough to be able to tell if it was at this point. "Of course. Why wouldn't you?"

"If she finds out about the Susies, I don't know what she's going to do. And I don't want to know. She can't know, okay? This is important."

She shook her head slightly. "Of course. How would she know?"

She wasn't taking this seriously enough for his taste. "I mean it, okay? She can't know. I already know she's somehow going to find out we were in the dark world, and the dark world is very important to her." He was worried that Noelle was getting the notion that he was only saying this to avoid getting embarrassed, but he was concerned about his life.

About Susie finding out, flipping out, catching him unawares and actually killing him after all. "She is going to ask a lot of questions, and you have to be ready to answer them." She just occasionally looked back and forth between him and the hand she was holding. "And you can't talk about any of this. No Grunts, no Homemakers, no Berserkers, Axes and no Mistresses. None. I mean none."

She stared down at that same hand. She could feel his hands tremble. "Gosh." She only gradually got an idea how much more important than some possible embarrassment this was to him.

"'Trying a bit' to keep it a secret isn't enough. I have to be sure that you will do anything it takes to keep Susie from finding out. You can't tell Berdly about any of this, your Dad, Jocks, Catti, Mrs. Alphys, you can't tell anyone. Because if you do, sooner or later, Susie will find out."

The motionless face, the wide-open stare, the agitated breathing in spite of standing still for an extended period of time, she was growing worried, he seemed like he was about to suffer a panic attack or some kind of mental breakdown. She witnessed impending 'episodes' with him, but never actually reaching them, and this was unlike any of those times as well.

But comparing it to that gave her an idea of what he needed. What he needed wasn't a hug. He wasn't a fan of hugs anyway, he was generally not fond of physical contact. What he needed, was: "Chocolate. You should have some again." He obliged and had another spoonful of Ralsei's delicious cake. "Feel better?"

He nodded. His shoulders dropped and his arms eased up a bit. "But seriously."

"It's all right. We can just tell her they looked like random people. Fictional people. If we have to, we'll say that they're dragons and leave it at that." She could tell that he still wasn't quite sure. "Aw, stop worrying so much. It will be all right." He let go of her, stood up right. With his mouth tense and shut and his eyes closed, he took a breath as deep was was possible, exhaled, and most of his body was relaxed again. "Is everything alright now?"

Slowly, he raised his hand to move it towards the light they were standing next to. But before he touched it, he faced her one more time. "I trust you, okay? Please, don't break it."

She chuckled at his unusual hesitancy. "I promise." After this, he did it. He stepped closer to the light and touched it. Noelle had no idea what he was doing, but she humoured him. And once she could read from his movements that he was about to march back to the street and towards the temple, she joined him - so that they could make their way to the wide, out-of-place structure together.


	21. Great Dragon Fountain

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 09

Great Dragon Fountain

* * *

The temple of the Drakeforger stood out and massively so. From left to right, past the corners of the buildings at the edge of the very wide road that separated the rest of the city from the temple, the dark crimson of the temple contrasted with the bright basalt grey to all sides so much, it almost hurt his eyes. The blue and green pillars on both sides of the gate to the temple, had an exterior design that was off somehow.

Kris half expected the slight indentations found on cylindrical pillars used for temples and forums at the Mediterranean coast, left behind from ancient times. But the pillars here just had six flat sides arranged in a circle. That about them alone stood out even more to him than the temple itself. The aesthetic gave him the feeling that he was supposed to recognize it from somewhere, but he didn't. Not right now at least.

To both sides of the gate stood, of all the things to expect in Bedrock, dragons. Two green, bipedal dragons with pointy snouts, long, curled up tails and light green wings with claws at their tips. They wore shiny, silver suits of armor and were armed with a spear and a shield. The shields had an image of a paintbrush engraved on their front.

When Kris and Noelle approached the gate, the guards acknowledged their arrival, but didn't make any efforts to try to stop them. They greeted them instead. "Welcome, dragonslayer. Her eminence, the Drakeforger, has been expecting you."

"Well...here we are."

"She has eyes and ears everywhere. None tread upon this realm without her knowledge. She has ways of knowing everything that happens in it. If she were not well-aware that you were coming to visit, these doors would be closed. To you and to anyone."

It was completely dark behind the guards. Maybe this was a last chance to get an idea of what exactly they were walking into. "So who or what is the Drakeforger exactly?"

"She came from a realm far, far away, but has been with us since the dawn of life in this realm. When the first dragons were created, they were crude, primitive. Their creation lacked direction. Then, the Drakeforger was brought to this realm. And ever since then, it is said that whenever the lightners created dragons, she has guided their hand, shaped the mold their flesh is poured into, sharpened their senses to better perceive their vision of what they sought to create and tempered their skill in creating us, so as to improve on it as much as they could."

"In a way, she is mother to all of us. But enough of that. We must not keep you any longer. Pass and face her - and with her, your destiny. But be warned. You tread upon sacred ground. Treat her with the respect she is owed."

He nodded and they passed the guards as asked. Straight into the oppressive darkness that filled the hall behind them. There were no torches here, no electric lights, not even magic crystals. It was pitch-black in here, and cold as well. Picking out his phone did allow for a little light, but not enough to penetrate the darkness in a meaningful way. The floor was made up of crude wooden planks. It wasn't laminated at all, and was unevenly carved or dented all over.

The scratches and dents were so big, he could feel them through his metal boots, and the dents were bigger than his boots. And the further he went away from the exit, the more the last remnants of light faded away and the more their steps echoed through the dizzying void. "Kris." Noelle spoke up with a shaky voice. "Kris, I'm scared."

He could feel something moving about. Slowly. There was something in here with them. But his and Noelle's elbows touched regularly, they could hear each other's steps, they could hear each other's silent gasps for air. It was so quiet, they could have heard each other's heartbeat if they tried. "I'm right next to you."

"I know." Then why tell him that she was scared? If him being right here with her didn't help, what more did she want? Why did she bring it up and make listening more difficult in the process? He sometimes struggled to understand her reasoning.

While rolling his boots along the floor with each step, he felt something. Whatever hit the floor, applied a little more force one time. Maybe a slip-up. He grabbed Noelle by the back collar of her robe and pulled at her to get her to stop at the same time as he did. He summoned his sword and carefully moved it about in the dark. "Hello? I know someone's there." Then he was startled by a noise that took him by surprise.

At first, it sounded like a growling, but upon hearing it for more than a tenth of a second, he knew it to be something that made him stir more than actual growling would have. It was a voice humming and chuckling to herself. "And so, my precious, brave little boy lives, and came back to me at last." He surged around, because it came from right behind him.

It was a deep woman's voice, that made him very uncomfortable. "I've wondered for so long, what had became of you. I had long given up." The sultry tone of her voice, and her voice itself made him feel things like he Mistresses' did. Inappropriate things he didn't want to feel around Noelle, who trembled and pressed herself against the side of his armor to make it worse. Now that he had some vague idea of where the voice was coming from, he slowly stepped away from it.

"Oh my, what a shaky blade. I must have you really worked up. Would you rather keep the lights on?" Now, with very heavy steps, heavy enough to explain the dents in the floor, the source of the voice moved away from them. And then, an insanely long, but crackling torrent of fire shot up from within the dark in front of them, up and far above them, into a brazier that was made of logs of wood stacked together in a cage.

The fire revealed it's origin to be a very tall, hooded figure, which quickly conjured another torrent of fire, directed at a brazier off to the side. And then she lit another brazier, and another one. Each one lit up the hall more, and allowed for the two of them to see more of it. Even with all of them lit, the temple's interior was left very dim. But at least, you could see in it. The walls were lined back to back with pillars like those at the entrance, and taller ones were arranged throughout the hall. All pillars had the same six-flat-sides shape, but came in a wide, and familiar array of colours and tones.

And the now visible figure behind the fires, was a ten foot tall dragoness. With a physique that could be described as voluptuous to say the least - enough so for her form to show - even through the loose brown monk's robe wrapped over it. But Kris recognized her from somewhere. That smile. That application of lipstick at the front end of her pointy snout, the unusually long eyelashes, that long and voluminous body of well-kept dark red hair, those particular horns.

And he recognized the desaturated purple of her skin. The result of mixing a bright grey into deep purple. "Welcome back, 'dragonslayer'." Knowing what she was, almost caused him to stumble. She was the book that Berdly would never shut up about. More precisely, the dragon on the cover. If it weren't for her covering herself up in that loose robe, she wouldn't have been wearing anything, just like on the picture she was from.

His aghast classmate stared at him with an open mouth. "You know her?"

"No I don't." Once he collected himself, he walked a little closer to the Drakeforger. "What do you mean, 'welcome back'?"

The Drakeforger covered her mouth and chuckled. "Do you not remember? How could you forget something as our last time together? Do you suffer from amnesia?"

"We never met. Was it Butcher? Was I yellow when you met 'me'?"

"Oh no, it was most certainly you." She stepped away a bit and, now with the shifting contours of her robe in full vision, began sneaking around the two of them as if they couldn't see her, knowing full well that they could. Which was a bit of a relief. Whenever she was in his field of view, he tried to avoid looking at her, be it her face, or the rest of her body.

She had a purposeful swing to her movements that accentuated the parts of her figure, that he had rather not spent too much time focusing on. Lest this fittingly shaped mother to all dragons leered back at him more than he feared she already did. "What's wrong?" She surged towards him and ran her index finger along the underside of his head. Pulling his head upwards to face hers by his chin. "Why would you do this? Embarrassed to talk of moments you shared with an old loved one, now that there's a new one listening?" She laughed and backed away again before he could answer.

"Kris, what is she talking about?"

"I don't know." He suspected that she was lying to manipulate him in some way. "Can you help me remember? What happened 'the last time we met'?"

"Still playing the fool, aren't we? Very well, I shall entertain this charade. It was several months ago. I caught you alone with one of the many 'succubi' that now roam this land. Watching the setting of a sun that wasn't there. And when you saw that I had troubles of my own, you were such a helpful little boy, you could not resist but to offer your assistance."

He didn't like how she continued to sneak around him and Noelle, too fast for the two of them to follow all of her movements for too long, but with the constant danger of her rushing his way like she did before. "The fragment was gone, after you reached for it. Lost in the void as you were. You must have caught it, and now you came back to me."

"Fragment?"

"The light I was attempting to reach, and that you sought to reach on my behalf. I presume I now owe you an explanation of what it was. It was a fragment of the Font of Creation. The source. The fountain to all fountains. That which gives form both the dark world as a whole, and the light world. When the barriers between the worlds weaken, tiny fragments of it's power, with tremendous luck, can be found briefly seeping into the deepest crevaces of the dark world, only to disperse not long later. To claim such a fragment for oneself, is to wield a power that defies the laws of the dark world and the light world alike. Tell me, have there been any...changes? Do you seem to have acquired some new skill you couldn't explain? An ability that defies all logic as you know it?"

Yes, there were the lights. The timeframe matched her story, too. "No...no. Not that I'd know." The lights that no-one else could see. The lights that allowed him to turn back time. But even if that was where that all came from, he would have remembered travelling to the dark world and catching a light, would he? He definitely would have remembered meeting someone like the Drakeforger.

"No reason to fret. I am certain you have one, even if you are not aware of it, and it will give you the edge you need in what lies ahead."

"What lies ahead?"

"Temptress, one of those new arrivals. Once half of a pair, now a wayward witch." With a slow swipe of the dragon woman's hand, images appeared in the air before them. Flickers of light in different colours began painting a picture Kris could see from different angles - as if it wasn't a screen or a floating display, but the people in question were actually there right in front of them.

An image of Temptress and a few succubi on a boat in the stormy sea. "The self-absorbed tradesman who sent you to me, is not aware that she has not set sail for the northern straits of the Kingdom of Heaven, but is travelling further south. You have more time to reach the throne than he expected, but if you let it go that far, you will face hardships he was not aware of."

"What hardships?"

"Let me go back to a time long before the tradesman and his people arrived." The images of Temptress travelling across the sea vanished and in their place, new ones appeared, showing something completely different. Around Kris and Noelle, an enormous meadow unfolded spanning far through the dark hall, either shrouded in light and dark blue light, or covered in light and dark blue grass. Everywhere on it, all kinds of wild reptilian fantasy animals that never existed outside of art or fiction, wandered and flew in different directions.

"Long ago, the land in this realm was wild and untamed. Roamed by savage creatures. They were unlike the succubi of today. More primitive. More ferocious. More ravenous, with no mercy or concern for their prey. I myself witnessed the creation of most of them. The singing and trumpeting angels have always been with us and never ceased to be, but at some point, the end of the age of dragons came. The lightners' presence waned and with it, most of the beasts vanished as well. Some of those beasts, those among them that were dragons, were banished beneath a gorge much like the one the ugly morsels you call 'succubi' or 'Susie' escaped from."

"They are now known only from tales, and only referred to as the Elder Dragons. Dragons from before the lightners' presence weakened, and with them, their vision for dragons was tamed. Those who knew them from the time of their freedom, oft call them 'Devourers', as a change they noticed in newer dragons when compared to the Elder Dragons, was that they were not only less savage, but also less gluttonous. They no longer swallowed entire other creatures whole."

"But whether you intend to call them 'Devourers' or 'Elder Dragons', the matter stays the same. Temptress can reach the terrace upon which she finds her destination - and yours - on her own. But rightfully, she doesn't deem herself strong enough to best the Golden Guardians without reinforcements. Reinforcements of a scale and strength that the succubi cannot provide. Any succubi that die, she can resummon and resurrect by doing so."

Within the meadow, Temptress appeared again. "But none of them measure up to what she will be faced with." She was holding a brown, pointy metal object, chanting something Kris and Noelle couldn't hear, and a ray of red light shot from the object and raved open the ground before her. "The same Knight you have beyond a doubt heard of, has gifted Temptress with a fragment of his armor, and like he did with the succubi, she plans to use it to unleash the Elder Dragons."

Where the ray had raged along the ground, the earth opened up, chunks of the ground itself fell into the depths beneath it, and the same wild reptiles burst out of the earth through the newly opened up hole. "If this happens, endless armies of giant creatures will wash over this realm as they have before. The new arrivals, who have already settled here, are small and weak, they will without a doubt face terrible losses. Your only hope to stem the tide without a lot of lost lives, should this happen, is to enlist the aid of the Dragonborn."

The still picture she conjured up, was that of a young man. He had the white, fuzzy but fanged face of a boss monster, but the horns, wings and tail of a dragon. He wore a helmet forged specifically with openings for his horns, and the way his horns and the helmet played together, made him look like he was wearing a viking helmet. Patches of green scales were scattered between his white fur and those same scales covered his hands. For lack of a better way to describe it, he was half dragon and half boss monster. "He is said to be made from the flesh of a lightner, but born the son to Mace, this realm's lost protector, and her only legacy."

Mace? That was a familiar name. Mace was a fictional character, that Asriel made up. A tall, green dragon barbarian who wore revealing armor padded out with furs, and wielded a spiked mace and a buckler. He had a lot of such characters, but Mace was his favourite. He was very upfront about that to Kris, and showed him the drawings of her that he had. Not least of course, because Kris wound up making most of Asriel's art of her. Kris' 'Berserker' was based on one of those drawings. "What do you know about Mace?"

"Not all dragons were feral beasts that walked on four legs. Some were like me, and later the succubi. They walked on two legs and spoke like you and I do. Five of them, led by Mace, were the protectors of the Kingdom of Heaven. But when the lightners' presence weakened, they vanished along with most life from days past." She showed them a silhouette of five adult dragonesses. They were all unusually tall, muscular and well-endowed at the same time. The way Asriel drew - and requested all humanoid dragons. Kris recognized each one of them by their armors and choice in weaponry. "Now, the Dragonborn is all that is left. They say in the realm beneath the ground, he fights the Elder Dragons to this day. If they go free, so does he. He is your chance at defusing the threat that they pose."

He had gotten used to listening to her by now. And he could avoid a lot of the discomfort by never actually directly looking at her. He only looked in her general direction, like he often did around other people. "All right. If she frees the Elder Dragons, fetch the Dragonborn. I got that part. But what about those 'Golden Guardians' Temptress has to beat. What are those? Are they going to help us if we make it to the terrace?"

"They are the closest thing short of the lightners themselves, that this realm has to gods." The five silhouettes of dragon women made way for the nigh-blinding image of five upright, winged humanoids, clearly visible, encased completely in very cloggy bright golden armor, forged with more detail than he could possibly go over from the distance they were seen from. The armor of each one had the golden likenesses of objects and utensils forged onto them, that didn't quite fit together with the imposing titans he was seeing balance axes, greatswords and hammers off their comparable mountains for shoulderplates.

"They are Paintmaster, keeper of the arts." She held her palm under the first one from the left. Golden paintbrushes were carved and attached to his armor, in places rows of them covered entire segments of it. She continued and moved along the row of guardians as she did. "Penmaster keeper of knowledge." The next one was covered in pens and pencils. "Chantmaster, keeper of songs."

The third one had violins or guitars attached to his shoulders and maracas to the backs of his upper arms. Instead of wings, triangles decorated both sides of his helmet and xylophones covered his legplates. "Praymaster, steward to the Angel." This one was just covered in wings, crosses and holy books. An extra large, emphasized cross peered out of his chest plate in the front. Like the other three, he had three pairs of wings, but his were even bigger than those of the others. "And lastly..."

The last one just had telescopes forged onto every lengthy part of his armor, and the rest was decked with stars. Kris felt confident enough to understand the pattern and cut her off, briefly looking her in the eyes with a wink. "Is it Starmaster, keeper of the stars?"

"Almost. He is Stargazer, keeper of the great beyond. The Golden Guardians are believed to be the stewards, the keepers, the angels that watch upon all of us from their terrace up high. In truth of course, they only guard the Throne of Achievement and the dark fountain. They deem themselves above the struggles of those of us down here. And in more than one way, they are right. For it is said that they were all forged to be bestowed upon not just any lightners, but only those that proved their worth through great accomplishments. Whoever wields power over the throne and the fountain, will soon control this entire realm."

"That is why Temptress wants it for herself. And it is to stop the greed of twisted souls like her in their tracks, that they kill anyone who treads near the throne and the fountain. Even in the absence of the lightners, they are diligent in their task and spare none who come too close to the hallows they protect, and you will not be an exception. Even when you have stopped and bested Temptress, if you seek to seal the fountain, end the squabbles within this realm and return to the light world, you must come up with a way to defeat or pass the guardians as well."

All right. That was all nice, but it left grounds for him to raise his finger in protest. "I was expecting something more useful. Do you have any tips? What weaknesses does a succubus have? Or an Elder Dragon? Is there some trick I could use to avoid them?"

All illusions around them dispersed, and the Drakeforger began wandering around the two of them again. "I'm afraid not. Far from it. Especially in your case. A rule that goes beyond this world, is that humans and dragons have always been drawn to one another." Having arrived right behind them, she took a sharp turn to the left and straight to Kris. "Sometimes, they clash violently. Sometimes, they clash in other ways."

When she said that, she closed in too fast for him to dodge, and snuck straight past him. On her way, brushed against his not armored shoulder with her waist. Sliding against his back with some of her tail while she drew away again. He could feel his shoulder pressing into her side. He froze in place when he felt the goosebumps it gave him. The thin fabric of her robe didn't obscure her form to his touch in the least and it didn't make this any less awkward for him in general.

"But a clash can never be avoided. Even if they were not instructed to do so, they would always seek you out. It is in their nature. You cannot avoid them. And to kill a succubus accomplishes nothing. The power the Knight bestowed on Temptress, allows her to resummon any succubus that dies with no effort. Instead, you should continue doing what allowed you to make it this far. Use the natural attraction that forces you to confront them to your advantage and befriend them."

After this though, she fell silent and observed him from several of distance. He did what he can to pull himself together and nodded. "All right. Is that everything."

In more of a playful way than a serious one, she put her arms together and scratched the lower font of her mouth. "Let me see. Elder Dragons, Dragonborn, Golden Guardians...no. I've been over the crucial parts. So then..." She stopped right in front of him, turned around to face him, and then lunged forward. Straight his way with her arm stretched out to reach for him. He instinctively jumped back a bit, but nowhere near enough to escape her.

The way the shock surged through his back felt like a large spider landing on it and stretching it's legs to reach the sides.

The Drakeforger wound her arm past his neck, grabbed hold of it, and brought his head closer, so that she could plant a kiss on his cheek with her snout. He didn't want this. He wanted to push her away, but his arms failed him. He kept his mouth closed, but he couldn't keep his heartbeat from accelerating. By the angel, he couldn't just hear her humming and giggling when she smeared the side of his face with lip gloss. He could feel it.

The unwanted excitement from her hard-to-get-used-to voice and the mere presence - had just worn off a little and now it was back in full force. "Now then, my little dragonslayer." Even when she stood back up, towered above him and drew away, the shock lingered for a few moments, before the relief settled in. "Go my precious little boy. Befriend those dragons, and save this realm from the looming threat of enslavement at the hands of the Knight."

He slowly backed off and away from her, happy about every foot he got closer to the exit. When he felt Noelle walk along at his side, stunned as he was, he started grasping around without looking in an attempt to catch her arm, which he did after a few attempts. Holding Noelle by the forearm gave him some grounding and calmed him down.

Then, when they had almost made it out and already had their backs turned on most of the inside of the temple, as well as it's inhabitant, that unease-inducing voice called for them again. "Oh, and lightners." Worried about what awaited him, he turned around. She kept her distance, at least that was something. "Tell your friend to go easy on the wine. Her last few messages were a little hard to decipher."

After that, he made sure to leave the temple very quickly. He didn't notice until he was halfway back on the street, that he was still holding onto Noelle. And her forearm was sweaty. It had to be very sweaty for him to feel it through her fur AND the sleeve of her thick, wooly red robe. "Oh, sorry. Didn't notice." He let go of her right away.

"It's uh - it's okay." Upon inspecting her for the first time since they left, he noticed not just her arm was sweaty. Sweat drops trailed down the sides of her face, and a bright red glow coming from her face, made her more purple than blue around it's edges "How are you...how are you feeling?"

To soothe his passions, he consciously tensed up his chest and took a deep breath, keeping his chest tense all the way through. Which relaxed him exactly the way he needed to. There just was something about this woman's voice, appearance and demeanour that made his armor feel tight and stuffy in all the wrong places. The images and impressions she conjured up in him - he dreaded to think about them, but he couldn't stop himself all the same.

He was glad this was over. He was honest with Noelle and mumbled the first thing that came to mind: "I feel like taking a shower." He was happy about every metre that they got away from the temple, and yet still, for half the way back to the blacksmith, that slight itch or tickle wouldn't leave his stomach.

"Same here." On their way back, none wanted to talk too much. Not until the awkwardness wore off a little. They both stared off in opposite directions, fixating on the rough walls, the anachronistic glass windows the houses had in this area. Focusing on what they had heard. Kris was mostly in the Drakeforger's focus, but even Noelle got swept up in...whatever that was.

This dragon deity certainly shouldn't have affected either of them as much as she did. What was wrong with them? Well, now her mind was clear again. And they hadn't yet reached their friends. She had something on her mind to further distract Kris with. "Say, Kris."

"Mhm?"

"You've been very different lately...since you know, the dark world. Not just today, in general. You're on good terms with Susie all of a sudden..." Debatable. "...then you just work together with Berdly like it's nothing. And then there's Ralsei. You two seem so close. Closer than you are with almost anyone. And you've only known him for two days?"

"Yes? So?" She was confused as to how oblivious he was to it.

"I mean...it's crazy, isn't it? He's a complete stranger and you're treating him like..." She paused, for lack of finding the right words. "I don't know. It's just that lately, you're like a whole different person. What happened to old you? You know, quiet you? The Kris I know? The same you who would get an infection because he got injured and wouldn't tell anyone until it's too late. What happened to that Kris?"

"I'm right here."

"No you're not." His dismissive attitude only got her more agitated. "First you're making friends, then there's the art thing you kept from me all this time." As well as everyone else except Asriel and maybe his Mom, if she went through his stuff while he wasn't looking. "Then you're saying all these things to those Susies, and Ralsei - you're like a normal person around him. All personal and commanding and interested in things. You're never like this around me. If there's always been this side to you and you just never showed me - look at me, when I'm talking to you!"

Now with a certain amount of force, she held him in place and wound his bangs back around his ears so she could see his eyes. "You're doing it again. Even here, when it's the two of us, you start hiding that side of you. It feels like you're shutting me out and I don't understand why. Why do I deserve this? I'm not sure what about you to believe anymore. Which Kris is the real Kris? Quiet Kris or outgoing Kris?"

Once she was done, he broke free of her grip and went back to moving forward, even though he did so at a much slower pace. "I'm 'outgoing', because I have to be. The way I am around you, that's the real me. And I'm like that around you, because I can trust you to be understanding with that. Unless I'm at home - or at least I feel like I am, I want to keep to myself and focus on what I'm going to do when I'm on my own again. I don't have to worry about letting something slip and maybe they can somehow 'read' my face while I do and that way, they find out more and...it's stuff like the Susies that I'm afraid of coming out."

He paused and reconsidered what she might have thought. "Mostly it's the Susies. Reason I started telling Berdly and Susie about it, at least the art, is because Berdly basically already knew. There's this book Asriel borrowed from the library years ago and never brought back. He didn't bring it back, because I started reading and using it. And whenever you're not there - it's - generally when no-one else is listening, he brings it up. All the time. It used to be that I could just say he's making assumptions, but then we were in the dark world and we were attacked by a giant Susie. At that point, what secret was there left to keep?"

"But why didn't you show me any of them? I'm not just anyone from school, right?"

"And then you would have told someone else and then they would have told someone else..."

"You don't know that. You could have just trusted me to keep it to myself."

He stopped and just stared at her for a while. "That's a bad idea. As soon as you have to rely on someone not to do something, that's when they do it. Dad did that, look at him now."

When he was already speeding up to get back to the others, Noelle stayed, because she just connected the dots. "Wait...that's what that earlier was about? That's why you were so scared? Even now, you don't really trust me one bit, do you? You seriously think I'd just tattle on you to Susie!"

When he turned her way again, she couldn't see the faintest hint of guilt or remorse on how his mouth was angled. "Well...yes?"

She snorted, but when thinking about it again, couldn't help but smile. "Unbelievable." When she really thought about it, if it was all true, and he didn't trust her one bit, he wouldn't have been bold enough to outright tell her so just now. At least now, she was keeping up with him, and it wasn't that far anymore either. Kris had some nerve. But now at least she knew. Now it all made sense to her. She was going to prove to him, that he could trust her with this. Then maybe, they would all see more of outgoing Kris in the light world as well.


	22. Amen!

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 10

Amen!

* * *

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting. When Kris and Noelle came back to the blacksmith after their visit to the Drakeforger, a lot of weapon racks were empty, swords, sabres and a morning star just left on the floor. The man in the forge himself wasn't present either, at least not where they had seen him last time. They heard something coming from behind another door. It led to a training hall and in it, several wooden target dummies strewn on the floor.

They were broken to pieces, some with cuts, some with brittle dents. And of course headbanger was the one wreaking he havoc in front of two awkward-looking friends and an increasingly impatient host. She was laughing and hacking the blacksmith's dummies to pieces. After trying out all those other weapons, in the end, she defaulted back to what Kris was guessing she would pick from the beginning. "So, you guys gonna pay for her weapon, or what?"

Of course, to not cause even more of a commotion, Kris and the others agreed to pay and help put all the weapons back where they belonged. Contented, headbanger picked out a set of leather bands made specifically to hold her axe in place, and hung it off her back. The way she arranged it, she could reach over her shoulder with her left hand to grab her guitar, and with her right hand to grab her axe. It made her attire a little more symmetrical.

With all else set now, they were ready to head to the Dealmaker's Den - uh - the Sinwielder's Den. Granted, the titles weren't exactly the same, but Kris was still convinced they would find the same Samuel, or at least an identical one, at their destination. What he didn't understand though, was that Noelle was becoming more and more nervous, the closer they got to it. Especially when they reached the broad road near the Journeyman's tower, where a bit further along, it stood at one of the corners of the city.

In pink and light blue neon letters, the club's name shone brightly off a marquee draped in short red cloth and hanging over the front doors. Complete with a half full wine glass with a straw hanging off its side. Two bouncers, metal men with long legs stood on both sides of the entrance.

"Lightners. You've been expected. Please, do come in." No searches, no interruptions. One of the guards pulled the broad glass doors open for them. Immediately upon entering, they could smell the tobacco off the lit cigarettes and the alcohol, evaporating off open glasses and mugs into the air. It was a club with walls and ceiling made of wood and the floor of smooth ceramic.

Citizens of all those four kinds unfamiliar to Kris sat along the tables drinking various strange mixes, or having some junkfood like fries or a burger. They were all intently watching the stage, where four golden women lifted their skirts and flashing their legs in a synchronous dance behind one man who took the main spotlight. A goat, but unlike the goat men that Kris figured came to the city together with the Journeyman, Dasher and the others, it was an actual Boss Monster.

Except it wasn't, because Boss Monsters always had white fur. His facial features weren't featureless glowing surfaces like with Ralsei or Samuel, he had normal eyes and a normal mouth. Asriel's normal eyes and normal mouth. And yet, this one's fur and horns were pitch black. He wore nothing but a pair of underpants and a white bow tie, attached to his neck via a thin cloth collar. He wasn't hiding his appearance under an enchanted hat. He really was just a black Boss Monster, regardless of whether or not something like that existed in the light world.

And he sang. He was singing with Asriel's golden voice, dancing ever so slowly along the various other things arranged on the stage. To his left was a throne, covered in white cloth, and to his right, a with a white cloth covering both the person and the chair. When the Boss Monster was just done accompanying his lines with a finger gun, the 'barrel' of which he drew along his entire audience, he froze upon almost pointing it at Kris and the others.

When he noticed them, he stopped and interrupted his song. In spite of him being in the middle of it with no inclination of this being a conclusion, the audience applauded regardless. "Oh my goodness, thank you everyone, thank you. Sorry to cut it short, but I have special guests to attend to. Why doesn't my dear friend here give you a nice distraction instead?"

Slowly, with careful steps, the dancing devil tip-toed down the stairs to his stage and passed the microphone to a human woman in a revealing red dress made of an evenly glittering fabric.

It made him think of Temptress, but being a human woman in a red dress was where their similarities already ended. This woman was significantly older than Temptress. How old exactly was hard to discern, since her face bore the almost doll-like aesthetic of a human face covered in make-up. She had no extra vines wrapped around the top of her head, and most importantly, she had no antlers.

"Thank you, thank you." Before she so much as started her introductions, the woman in the glittering dress bowed multiple times to the already applauding audience. They had started their applause the very moment she got up, giving them an inclination that she was about to enter the stage. "I must say, I've had a blast coming here. Thank you, to all of you. This song is dedicated to one of the first friends I made when we came to this city. Let's hope she hears of it."

An off-stage drummer started off the beat that the rest of the musicians would play to, and she began addressing the audience when Kris' attention turned back to their table.

The host they visited though - he recognized him immediately by his conspicuous and familiar appearance, descended the stairs all the way and put his hands together on his way to him and the others. "Aw, isn't it wonderful to see you again, darling." He made a gesture with his head that vaguely resembled kisses on Dasher's cheeks. "And you two. What an honor it is to see some real lightners, in the flesh."

"You knew we were coming?"

"Who doesn't know? When good old Jay-jay does something, word gets around fast. Oh, what is that now?" Kris was mostly calm. He was more used to meeting almost-Asriels by now. Noelle was trembling in her robe. Ever since they saw the unabashed goat, she was staring at the floor non-stop. "Come on, raise that chin, turn that frown, upside down. Your arrival is a reason to celebrate. Come on now, what kind of a guest host am I? To leave you standing like this, tsk tsk. What am I even doing with my life."

He clapped his hands. "Seamus?" Some of his mannerisms were exactly like those of Samuel. And his servants had the same names as well, apparently. Except that this time, Seamus was a grumbly man in a more unusual suit, made of thin wooden rods like many of the other new denizens of the city. "A table and anything they order, on the house. Come on right over here." The teenagers were hesitant to follow, so he actually had to forcibly push them to their places by their backs.

"Hey?" Dasher gently led Noelle to face him by the chin. "Is there something wrong? You look - not pale, but..." The sudden change in his demeanour gave her a hiccup. And she was no less flustered when she was drawn out of her silence.

"What? No. He - I'm fine, I'm fine."

"You don't look like you do." The usual content smile faded from Dasher's face. He glanced over to Sinwielder, and then back to her. "Does he scare you?"

"No...no, that's not it." She just pushed his hand away, shook her head and continued to avoid looking the horned club owner in the eyes.

"I can assure you, he won't hurt you - well, unless you give him a reason to." The black devil grinned, wiping some water off one of the fresh glasses that had been brought to their table with a handkerchief. "So, Donnie, how long until we can get going?"

Sinwielder placed a hand on his chest, with his clawed fingers stretched out all the way - another mannerism identical to Samuel. "Going? I don't see where my involvement comes in. How do I relate to your task?"

"Does Donnie stand for Donuel? Or Doniel?" The one that had barged into their conversation, was Kris. And he did so with an empty stare.

This interruption left behind a silence across the table that Donnie left hanging there before answering him. "Oh no. Where are my manners? My real name is Donatien. Donatien Francois, but I don't expect you young ladies and gentlemen to be able to pronounce that, Donnie is perfectly fine." The black goat leaned back in his chair and clapped one more time. "Feet."

As though on cue, two nearby waiters came around with a bucket of water and soap, and quickly cleaned his feet with it. Meree seconds afterwards, he leaned further back with another waiter holding his chair to keep him from falling over, and raised his fuzzy, uncovered legs and left them stretched out on the table.

Right where Noelle would have had her meal had she ordered something, and where she was keeping her eyes fixated to avoid looking at anyone else. Which of course now she no longer could. What with the paws of a grinning boss monster staring right back at her. "But I still fail to see my role in this. I knew you were on your way here, but what for?"

The prince decided to speak up instead of Kris. "We're here to pick up the Journeyman's wife. He said she'd be here. Where is she?" Sinwielder nodded over to the front of the restaurant. "Did she get a front row seat?" All the people at the tables closest to the stage, were more general goatmen and yellow women with overly wide and voluminous skirts. No-one that stood out.

"Not down there, on the stage." With his thumb, the devil in name pointed at the singer, who had now gone on to sing 'Fly me to the moon' by Frank Sinatra. "You're looking for Starlet. She's the person singing right now." As to why Kris recognized this song in particular, he preferred not to dwell on it for too long.

Because enough time had past with him not stopping, Dasher saw fit to intervene on how Donnie was treating Noelle. He gave him a gentle push against the shoulder with a fist clenched and kept it that way afterwards. "You're making her uncomfortable."

The human-looking darkner was met only with the half-lidded stare of a man that was tired of the antics of someone that had stretched his patience very thin. "Oh, am I? I never noticed. Do pardon my manners." Only very hesitantly did he withdraw his feet from the table and sit back upright enough that the waiter behind him could let go of his chair and return to serving the guests.

"While we're at 'uncomfortable'." Noelle gasped when she heard Kris pick up this opportunity to ask something she suspected to be on his mind. She was so uncomfortable being here, her chair was two feet further away from Sinwielder - and the table - than it was when she first sat down. "Why aren't you wearing anything?"

All the other guests wore orderly grey suits and bright dresses that were heavily decorated with jewelry and other shiny objects, but modest enough to cover up and obscure their already not entirely humanoid physique. It would have fit the theme if Donnie was dressed like Samuel. Fancy, maybe even with a top hat and a cane. But instead, he was sitting there, with the only patches of fur not on complete display being what that tiny collar on his neck concealed and his underwear.

What Kris concluded, was that unless there was some very specific reason for this, he was like many others they had seen, drawn that way. And if he had ever in his life drawn Asriel naked, and on top of that, completely black, he was certain he would have remembered. Sinwielder smiled at him for a moment, and said nothing. Deliberately leaving it up to him to wonder about it. "Why are you naked?"

And his fur colour wasn't an illusion, like Ralsei's and Samuel's. Otherwise, his eyes and mouth would have just been glowing lights. With his mouth pulled sideways to make a silly, 'upset' face, he leaned as far to his side as he had to, to reach her, grabbed Noelle by the shoulder and gave her a slight nudge. "Why is he naked?" The only thing he could conclude, was that he was - like Samuel - Noelle's work. And that his choice in clothing - or lack thereof, was hers.

Ralsei was about to ask Kris to stop, when the restaurant's owner finally did answer. "I'm a bit of a nudist if I dare say so myself. I was one since my creation. I always walk around like this, no matter what anyone else is wearing. I enjoy it way too much to stop. Poor little Noelle is going to have to deal with it." He gasped and covered the front of his mouth with his hand. "Oh my, speaking of which. You never told me any of your names. I'm just all over the place today, aren't I?"

Dasher gave him a stern look and drew him back to the matter at hand. "There's got to be some piece of intel you have for us."

Donnie just shrugged with his eyes closed and then left his shoulders to drop until they lazily hung off his sides. "I'm not sure what you think my stake here is. Whether that traitorous lass reunites with you, or whether we just behead her, I couldn't care less. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, I had rather we did the latter at this point. We've all been too lenient with each other, don't you think? It's about time people started being held to account for their actions."

Punishing the guilty. More and more, it became clear to Kris that this was his own person, divorced from Samuel, but in all the points that mattered, he was exactly like him.

"This is serious. We have to stop Temptress before she makes some fatal mistake."

"It's too late, loverboy. She already did. Some sins - or rather the mistakes they lead to, are not forgivable. You'll be lucky if she only loses a limb once it's all said and done."

With a growing fury, the archer smashed his fist onto the table. "The rest of us aren't as indifferent to one another as you! What is happening with you lately anyway? We used to matter to you. What's changed?"

With a nail file brought to him by one of the waiters, Dasher's old friend began scratching around at the claws at the tips of his fingers. "You know, back before all this happened, I recall you and Temptress sitting on the couch in my office many times, each time your grip on each other was more shaky - you were worried about whether your love for each other was fading - telling me that in spite of having everything you could have asked for, you still somehow felt...unhappy. Unfulfilled. I'm guessing you got the ring, because that feeling was taxing your relationship and you thought it would help. Most likely, it's what drove her crazy enough to fall for some megalomaniac she's never seen outside of his - dare I say it - shamefully crafted shell."

Dasher had had some time to calm down and tried raising his friend's spirit with a smile. "I don't think it's your place to call anyone's attire 'shameful'."

The devil just rolled his eyes. "My vices are a bold, naked reality that I put on display for everyone. I don't use them as a mask to hide my true face behind. That's just pathetic. Temptress' infatuation is with the shell, not the man that's hiding in it. She's never in her life caught a glimpse of the man inside."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

He waved that question right off. "Believe me, honey. I have first-hand sources. She's only ever seen the armor. Everyone who's seen him has." He had his employees clean his feet again and placed his legs right back onto the table.

"Since all other rules seem off the table right now, I'm going to break confidentiality while we're at it. This unfulfilled feeling you had: It wasn't you two. It was nothing between you. The ring would have done nothing. You had that feeling, and I did, and Jay-man, Starlet, Schleml, Prankster, Old man Naharaim, Emperor, Empress, Father Asmodeus, Mother Lilith, even the angels. Judas, Legis, Tempie, Pottie, Exxie, they were no exception. No-one was. You all joined my list of patients sooner or later, you all told me the exact same thing and I felt the same way myself. All of us feel it and have for a long, long time now." He snorted. "Would you believe me if I told you there was a reason for it? And that I found out what it is?"

"Sure."

"Would you believe me if I told you that as things stand, this feeling will never go away. It will continue to gnaw at our being for the rest of our lives until we have all been driven mad enough to throw our lives away like Temptress. And one single person is to blame."

"Who?"

A faint chuckle escaped the devil. With tired eyes, he grinned back at the archer. "We can't change it, so why waste any more thought on it? Right now, there is a girl with antlers out and about who is in dire need of comeuppance." The more he went on, the more visibly angry he got. He began bending the file with the force of his hand. "Very, very painful comeuppance."

When the force in his hands was strong enough to bend the metal enough for it to turn brittle and break off, the sight of it shook up Noelle enough to squeak. After this, the devil closed his eyes and cast all the rage off his face. With his calm smile back in place, he got up. "But enough of this. There will be enough bloody murder to cry in the future, right now, let us raise those spirits a little."

By now, the citizens in suits and dresses put their cigars and wine glasses aside to applaud the human woman on the stage. She bowed and thanked them and made her way off the stage, past the demon who ascended it alongside her. "What a wonderful performance, Starlet." Donnie blew her a kiss. "What would we ever do without your light gracing our lives every day."

While he paused to wait for the overeager audience to calm down, Kris couldn't help but think that something was off. Something was different. "It fills me with pleasure to announce to you that we have a few special guests of a nature we could never have asked for, but who - in our greatest times of need - decided to appear anyway."

One of the two chairs covered in white cloths - formerly on the back of the stage - the empty throne specifically, was gone. But before he could think about it much longer, he was blinded by the sudden spotlight shining on their table and the festively dressed singer sitting down next to him and Ralsei.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! I give you Kris and Noelle! Real lightners! In person, and braving any dangers that came their way, they came here. To save us from the impending tyranny. They will charge headfirst through the purple swarm of succubi that Temptress commands, put an end to her reign before it begins and seal the fountain, stopping any more mischief of bloodshed from happening!" They cheered and clapped at the group of five that had been put on the spot. "Can I get an amen in here, everyone?"

With glee, the audience chanted in unison. "Amen!"

With sideways motion with his fist, the devil further egged them on. "Can I get a 'Halleluyah'?"

Again, everyone around them joined together into a choir as though this wasn't the first time they did this: "Halleluyah!"

Grinning all the more widely, their host turned around and gestured for the dancers behind him to get off the stage, which as swiftly as their skirts allowed them, they did. He then turned back to the audience, but never ceasing to keep an eye on Kris and the others and slowly approached the side of the stage. The throne that was covered in white cloth was gone, but the chair on the right was not. It too was covered in a white blanket, and with it, a person that sat on the chair.

That chair was what the Sinwielder was walking up to. "In fact, why don't we take our prayers and praises a little further, and bring in a woman of god." In a decided and swift motion, he reached for the blanket and in a single move, sweeped it right off the robed dragon that lay beneath. It was Faith, the dragon nun. And she hadn't had the time to change her clothes. She was still wearing the same coif and robe, both still full of holes from her fight with Dasher.

At once, the heroes got up. Kris checked for the exit, but it was blocked by seven human women. They had long hair in all colours from red, blond and brown, and were stripped completely bare and covered up only by oval mirrors with golden frames that they held up in front of them. One of them had in one hand the front end of a large blanket that she had drawn after her on her way around the edge of the restaurant.

The messy nun was furious. Her gritted teeth were on display and trails of smoke rose up from her nostrils. "You!" She pointed straight at Kris and began charging his way.

Dasher got up, drew his epee and ran past the other guests to jump on the stage. But when he was about to cut into the nun's path, he felt the stinging pain of his left arm being cut open. "Not so fast." When he jumped in the opposite direction and turned to this unexpected threat, he saw the Sinwielder, smiling at him, with an epee of his own. "I'm your opponent here."

With a concise slice from above, he had struck him when he wasn't paying attention to him. He hadn't paid attention to him, because he trusted him, and here he was, forcing him to keep his eyes on him. He had to keep his distance, and that alone wasn't enough, as Donnie soon came closer and began attacking him. He had to parry his attacks.

After a while of fighting back and forth between long-time sparring partners, Dasher's and Donnie's weapons came to a halt, pressed against each other by the middle of their blades. A non-verbal agreement for a moment of respite which Dasher rightfully used to ask: "Why are you doing this?"

"We made a deal. She offered me a generous sum if I keep you from getting in her way."

The guests, including the Journeyman's apparent wife Starlet, all got up and either gathered in a corner, or outright left and were allowed to leave by the women with mirrors. When Kris approached them with Noelle and the others though, they closed ranks. When he tried to push them out of the way, one of them simply pushed him back and launched him onto the floor with a concise kick.

When he turned around, at the edge of the stage, he found that familiar toothy smile looking back at him, that was always followed by a chase or immense pain when he saw it on Susie. The nun jumped off the stage and stretched her right arm out. Out of the ground shot this same tome from before. About a square metre large, almost equally proportioned, heavily bound, framed and reinforced with a gold-brown metal.

On the front cover, the golden plate in the middle had a cross engraved on it. Instead of opening it and summoning a weapon from her holy book, as she did with Dasher, she just grabbed it with both hands and charged for Kris with the book raised like a battle hammer. Past all the soon vacated tables, she charged right for him, leaving Noelle and Ralsei completely beside themselves, not to mention Headbanger.

She charged right past them unabated. He was trapped. The only way away, was out, and the naked women - some kind of concubines to the Sinwielder, he figured - were blocking that route. All he could do, was summon his sword swing it upwards from below to gain momentum and apply all the force he could muster into countering the attack when this weaponized holy text of hers surged down onto him. She was trying to pummel him with the holy book. Taking 'bible-thumping' to a whole new level.

Somehow, using a step forward to position himself right under the nun's 'weapon', he was able to block the attack, with the blade of his sword - the 'Baphieblade' with the pentagram at its lower tip plainly visible - pressed against the centerpiece of the bible's metal frame. He had to dodge to the side when Faith spat a gust of flame his way and leveraged both their weapons sideways and down to buy time for him to retreat off to the side and gain some distance from her.

Her next attack, a horizontal swipe of her book in an attempt to launch him off his feet, he could dodge just by jumping back. He knew he wouldn't be able to parry her attacks forever. They were too heavy. She could put too much force into them for him to hold on against them. When she next attacked him, he was worried that he might have not dodged back far enough.

Apparently he had though, so it only slid against the tip of his blade. Which cut right into the tome. Seeing that gave him an idea. The bible's frame was solid, but the rest of it, while very heavy, was still just a book. Made of wood, paper or parchment, which was all flammable. Any book, even when covered in those thin plastic films, could burn if you really tried to make it, and he had a fire-breathing dragon on his side.

Strike after strike, the nun's attacks wore him down. The strain on his joints when he smashed his blade against the metal plates on all corners of her holy book, became more painful each time. But while he held on, he made sure his 'retreat' made an arc that circled right back to Noelle and the others. When he got close enough to Headbanger, she helped catch the giant tome surging down on them with her bare hand. He seized the moment and shouted "Fire!" at her.

"What?"

"Breathe fire!" When Faith pulled back the bible to strike out for her next attack, Banger finally realized what he meant. "Just do it!" She took a deep breath, and when she released it, a steady burst of fire shot out of her mouth. At first, she apparently hadn't understood what Kris wanted from her and was directing it at Faith. It took him pointing at the book for her too adjust it upwards.

Faith would have responded in kind, but getting set on fire as well as the book burning up staggered her and caused her to let go of it. Fully ablaze, it dropped onto the floor, and the sparks began igniting the wooden planks around it.

The fires were enough to set off the fire alarm. Shrill sirens drowned out any other noise in the club, fire sprinklers on the ceiling began coating everything around them in water. In hindsight, Kris should have expected this. Parts of the bible fell apart, others remained intact. And the frame held it all together and gave Faith something solid to grab it by.

To make it worse, now that parts of the corners had burnt, off, Faith's bible was lighter, which only allowed the dragon to wield it more quickly than before. Yet worse, after stepping back to gain a little distance from Kris and Banger, Faith actually did open her hand with her palm pointed at her scripture and through a light in the shape of water rippling around something that emerged through its surface, she pulled a shortsword to wield in one hand while swinging around the book with the other.

He was getting worn out. She was too strong for him alone to take on. They outnumbered her four to one, this shouldn't have been so difficult. As soon as the fire had begun, the rest of the guests cowering against the walls, made for the exit and were allowed outside by the concubines.

To his relief, when she next raised the book in another attempt to crush him, her more easygoing lookalike on his side had pulled up her new axe and held it up by the upper half of its grip to catch and stop it with both hands before it could reach him. When Faith then tried to strike or stab Banger with her short-sword, Kris stepped past her, pressed the blade of his sword against hers and forcibly pushed it off to the side.

With both her attacks canceled out, Ralsei came around as well, enchanted his scarf, swung it to wrap it around the arm Faith was holding her scripture with, and pulled it back. When she tried turning to him and forcing a gust of immediately dispersing fire through the torrents of water, Kris, for the first time now, raised his sword and surged her way to bury it in the back of her shoulder.

There wasn't much of a point to killing anyone, if what the Drakeforger said was right. But with the water helping along, he could see if they could bleed her out enough for Ralsei to pacify her. Right after he did though, he had to push himself off of her with one leg and back off, as she let go of her book and swiped at him with her sword.

When at this point, she was careless enough to leave her sword just hanging there, Headbanger took advantage of that and struck it out of her hand, leaving her unarmed. "Stop."

That only further infuriated the nun. She snarled at her and bore her teeth. Then, she fixated on Kris, tensed her arms and shoulders enough for it to show through her sleeves. She opened her mouth, aimed straight for his face, with her clean teeth pointing right at him, and leaped his way. He tried stepping back, but the slowly rising water took him so much by surprise, he fell over.

His life flashed before his eyes. He was convinced he was going to die and have to do everything over again. But while Faith was already off the ground with one foot, dark, thorned vines shot out of the ground and the ceiling, reaching for the nun gone feral.

They wound themselves around the front of her arms and legs and slowed down her movement. When she realized, she hadn't gotten as far as she planned, she pushed through the vines towards the human with sheer force. Then, more vines appeared and wrapped themselves around her. And then more, and then more.

She was able to tear through some of them, but in waves of four, more and more painful-looking vines grew out of surrounding surfaces and constricted Faith, until she couldn't move at all any more. She didn't stop braving through until she was encased in a pillar of vines, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Beyond that, the longer each vine lasted, the more it grew wider, solidified and took on a wood-like appearance, complete with visible bark on the strands.

Once Kris had recovered from expecting his impending doom, he looked to his side to find the possible cause of what was happening. Trembling all over, Noelle stood in place, with her staff held with both hands. A green light shone around its bramble-covered tip and small, brown, serpentine lines extended out of it, which when looking closer, looked like the same thorned vines that were holding the now grunting dragon in place.

He crawled a little further away from the nun before he got up. Then he came closer again, only to be snapped at by terrifyingly fast jaws.

When Faith realized this wouldn't work, she tried setting the vines on fire, but by now, they were so thoroughly encasing her, she couldn't move her head and what little she hit, was extinguished mere moments later by the still running sprinklers. In one burst of anger, the nun tried struggling free, but her efforts achieved nothing.

The vines actually wound themselves back, pulling her along with them. "No! Satan!" Her head could barely move, but her eyes drew everyone's attention to the Sinwielder, who was sitting at the edge of the stage with Dasher, both their feet dangling off its side. "Damn you to hell, Satan! Why are you not helping me?"

Donnie smiled and dismissively shook his head. "Tsk, tsk, Faith, dear. My end of the bargain was to keep him from getting in your way." He pointed to Dasher and then wagged his finger at her. "You said nothing about doing your job for you." With a long shrug, he spoke up. "Now then, lightners. Your battle with her is all but done. Finish it, and my ladies will see to your departure."

"No! I won't accept this! Do something!" But her pleas were to no avail. A deal was a deal, and Sinwielder had kept his end of it. Kris and Ralsei knew what to do. Soon, Headbanger got a good idea, too. They began searching for any spots that the bramble vines didn't cover and inflicting more and more wounds on their enemy.

Until the prince determined that it was enough. She snapped at him with her jaws when he brought his glowing hand closer. "Keep your dirty hands off me, you depraved harlot!" The light in his hand flared up and reached her face. But even when it did, she kept struggling.

"No! I won't be put out of commission by the likes of you!" But her eyes weren't completely open. He tried casting his pacify spell again. "No!" Her resistance didn't fool anyone. She was struggling to stay awake. "I refuse to let it end like this!" She struggled more, but Noelle's vines held tight. After Ralsei's next attempt at pacifying her, she kept going, albeit with pauses. "No! You filthy deviants! This isn't the end, I..." One more time, he used his magic, and finally, her arms turned limp and she fell asleep, properly this time.

They all took a moment to reassure themselves of Faith not waking up. Kris reached for his chest, but it was covered in his still dent-free chestplate. His heart was pumping like crazy. Faith's rather feral outbursts scared him to death. When he was certain that the fight was over, he suddenly felt so weak, he sagged against one of the tables and had to support himself on its surface to not stumble and fall over. "Are you all right?" The prince came over to pull him back up, even though he didn't really need it.

Now that her help was no longer crucial, Noelle froze in place and let go of her staff, which tipped over and fell into the slowly rising water. Those hoses just wouldn't stop running and the water filled up the building faster than it could seep out through the cracks and gaps. Kris struggled, not so much walking over to Noelle, and rather lumbering her way, with conscious effort not to fall over in each step.

Even after the time it took for him to get to her, nothing about her had changed. With glassy eyes, her mouth open and trembling in an awkward way, she stood there, frozen in place. Only her hands, for lack of a staff to hold, had lowered themselves. "You did it." She didn't react. He stepped right to where she was looking and even looked her in the eyes. Nothing. "Hello? It's over, she's asleep."

She was broken. It was all too much for her from the start, but she kept herself together for the most part, so Kris always assumed it was all okay in the end. But it wasn't. Now she was stuck, just as her father warned him she would. He grabbed her by the upper arms and held her a bit more gently. "It's fine. She's asleep, and I'm here." It didn't work. All this wasn't personal enough to get through to her.

He had to do something he really didn't want to do. He came as close to her as he was comfortable with, dispersed his sword and ran his arms under hers. Holding her by her back, he pulled her forward . He pulled her as close as his need for personal space allowed. He made sure that the skin on his neck was making contact with the scratchy fur on hers. "It's all right. I'm right here. She can't do anything to you. There is no reason to be afraid."

She could hear him. That was what Noelle's first thought was when the scared motionless doe regained her ability to form coherent thoughts again. Even through the solid armor, she could feel and hear Kris' agitated breaths. He was as scared as she was - or at least he had been. "I'm here, I'm not leaving you, and we're going to make it through this. I promise."

Most of her senses were numbed in the panic attack she suffered. It took her a moment to realize how she was even able to sense his fear like this. He had pulled her into a hug. A 'kris-hug', but a hug nonetheless. Hugging Kris was something that happened against his will. And she stopped forcing that from him as they grew older. Even after several years, without any other indicators, she could tell it was him just from how it felt like hugging a lamp post.

He was doing his best to show physical affection - on his own volition - in front of all these people. What had happened with him? What happened to the Kris she knew? That worry lingered for a moment, but not for long. Being held like this was nice. She liked what of his body wasn't covered, warming her up against the cold water showering down on everyone from above.

The longer he stayed like this, and all the more when she softened up her stance, the more she felt confident about this change. New Kris? Dark world Kris? Suddenly friends-making sociable Kris? She didn't know what it was, or how to call it, but she started to see that being afraid of it was silly. He could claim the shut-in she knew was the real him all she wanted, but she could tell that wasn't entirely true. He was changing. And now she was confident, that it was for the better.

Her eyes were still closed when he let go of her and drew back. Even pulling himself off of her embrace with a little force. When he was back at a distance comfortable for him, he held her by the shoulder once more and looked her directly in the eyes - this time with her looking back. "Better?"

Now, no longer afraid of losing the Kris she knew, seeing him care enough to engage her like this put a smile on her face. "Yes." He knelt down to pick up the staff and lead her closer to the exit. "Thanks."

"Shall we go outside?" She nodded and followed. The concubines finally made way and opened the door, causing the subsequent flood of water almost to pull everyone off their feet. When they made their way outside, the Sinwielder of all people sped up to walk alongside them, which gave Kris an occasion to ask him: "Why did you install sprinklers that never stop?" The water was almost reaching their knees by the time the door finally opened.

The devil - with no sense for the mood of anyone else as usual, shrugged. "Journeyman said to prepare for dragons. Dragons breathe fire. So I thought 'the more water, the better'."

He turned to Noelle one more time to make sure she had recovered. "I'm fine. You can let go." He was holding her by the arm on their way out and only let go, now.

When the rest of the water flooded out of the building and onto the street, and the water level at their feet lowered itself until there was none to speak of any more, the water pressure they all felt subsided. And so did the tension, both inside the building. For quite some time, everyone watched the spectacle as the sprinklers finally turned off and the water spread out onto the rock.

"So." the ruined club's owner broke the silence and directed his open hands towards his older singer, who didn't seem very fazed by everything that happened at all. "You got who you came for. And my business with Faith is concluded as well."

Donnie took a few steps away and patted his hands to press and shake off some of the water. Then he clapped his hands. "Ladies! Gather around." Immediately upon being called, the concubines, with no shame, followed him straight onto the road. Still bare, and on display for all the bystanders and passerbys to see. "It's time for us to take our leave."

As though on cue, the human women all stood closely side by side from each other in a row. Then they got on all fours and each one placed and strapped her mirror to her back with a red band, all mirrors together creating a quasi-deck chair that the devil moved on to sit on. Like this, moving sideways on all fours while never breaking formation, the concubines took their leave as ordered, and carried the devil with them.


	23. Bad Apple

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 11

Bad Apple

* * *

"This is it, right?" Now more hopeful over their chance at catching up with Temptress growing closer, the previously silent archer paced ahead of the rest of their growing group to keep up with Kris. He was leading them in a different direction from the one Dasher expected, which made him nervous. This wasn't the first time he asked him. "We have everyone and everything we need. We should return to the Journeyman for our passage up the cliffs." He wasn't that intent on leaving just yet. There were two more things he had in mind.

Instead of heading straight for the tower, Kris led them further inwards, to the squares that made up the market district in the centre. They were a bit like a Christmas market, or the one at the carnival in Canyon City. From within and behind small, wooden stands that filled the entirety, the monsters here offered all kinds of little toys and souvenirs and curios to the strange newcomers to the city. But he in particular already had a vague idea what he was here to look for.

Asriel wasn't much of a fan of detailed cities. So the things he drew didn't really fit with that. Asriel was mostly about villages and open landscapes. And what pointed in the same direction as to what Kris was thinking, was that he hadn't heard anyone mention an actual city in that other kingdom they were headed for.

If he wanted Noelle to gear up for the trip, his best chance at finding something for her, was here. He made sure that everyone stayed more closely together in those crowded areas, since with Starlet, the expensively dressed wife of the Journeyman, there were now five people that he had to look after and avoid losing.

And to top it off, half-way through the first square, he realized that Headbanger had stopped following when they came across the water pipe stand, where she somehow managed to strike up a conversation with the merchant behind the counter by the time he noticed. "This isn't what I'm looking for, come on!"

He was already trying to pull her along by force, when Noelle interrupted him. "Wait, what are you looking for?"

He flat out told her. "Something for you." And when he did, he didn't quite understand why she was startled the way she was. For a second there, she froze completely again, too.

"What? - I mean - what?" Or was she confused? He was never good at telling either way.

"It's going to be a dangerous trip and I don't think there will be a market like this there. You have to gear up. Find something that covers your head better than this." He reached over to the reddened doe and tugged at the ribbon bound to a lock of her hair. "Maybe even a better staff."

After that, she calmed down again. "Oh..right, okay. So you want me to look for..." A red and white Christmas hat was the best thing she could imagine to match her robe.

"A cap, something else, I don't know." Well at least now, Noelle was helping him look for something. And Headbanger was starting to give in and follow along as well.

They didn't find what they were looking for on the first square they visited. But at one of the last few stands they passed by, Dasher stopped. Kris had already moved along into the road between this square and the next one and only stopped to emptily stare at those that too far behind for him to move on.

When Noelle walked over to the archer, she saw a look on his face like that of an infant that had grown attached to their favourite new balloon, only for the balloon to fly away and be lost forever. He was standing in front of a stand attended by a slime monster and littered above and below with pots and bouquets full of flowers of all kinds. But Dasher was staring at one bouquet right in front of him. "Uhm..." She gave him some more time to notice that he was being talked to before she came too close for him to ignore. "What's wrong?"

He didn't bother to face her. He kept staring at those flowers. "It's a tulip." Indeed, the bouquet in the middle of where he was looking indeed held several bright pink and red tulips together. "They're Temptress' favourite flowers." He pulled out a little white cloth from within one of the likely various hidden pockets in his coat and cleaned his nose. The many feathers and little decorated layers of leather made it hard to see through them and knowing where those pockets were.

He cleared his throat, and then pointed at one of them, asking to buy it. And once he had his own tulip, he took off his hat, widened the elastic band that held his longer blue feather in place, took the feather away and wrapped it over the stem of the flower instead. "Sorry for that."

He followed only slowly and Noelle stayed with him. "It's okay. She's got good taste. I like lilies more, but tulips are a close second." When the still distraught human looked her way, she met him with a smile.

"Thank you."

With them a little closer to the rest of the group, Kris didn't strictly stand in place and watch them follow, so long as they were close enough when he checked on them. "Tell me more about Temptress. What is she like?"

"I'm not even sure what to tell. She's changed. We both have. Until...until things changed, we had been together for as long as we've existed. I used to make jokes and snarky quips whenever we came across other people. And she always laughed at them and was sincere about it. Many of our days, we spent at the windows of Fortune's Keep, gazing upon the many different realms the lightners used to bring the castle to."

"Not far from where we emerged from the castle, there is a little garden with a tree. We would sit under it, look down at the beach or the caverns or the forests or what other sight we found from there, and I would recite poems to her. Then recently, the castle's travels across realms stopped and we were stuck in our home realm. It's a mountain range, with tunnels and towns carved into the landscapes much like here."

"And that's when this 'feeling' started. Our times together quieted down. For both of us. It's just like what Donnie described. I was terrified that it could be us drifting apart, but there was no reason for that, so it made no sense to me that it was. In retrospect, it still seems like that was what it was after all."

He sighed. "I just can't believe she would do this. All our days together, did it mean nothing to her? Was I just a good on display? Was she just stringing me along in case she didn't find a 'Knight' to trade me for?"

Bringing up what Sinwielder said about their feeling left more of an aftertaste in her mouth than hearing him talk about Temptress like that. "I uhm..." And the thoughts he had put into words, visibly wore down on Dasher as well. "No. That's not fair to say. Maybe - maybe she...your ring. I know you had a ring for her. Did she?" He only gave her a silent, questioning look.

Understandable, seeing as he didn't know where she was trying to go with this. Granted, she only half-way knew herself. "I mean try to remember: Do you remember ever getting the impression that she knew? That she somehow got the sense that there was a 'ring' for her to expect - maybe something else like it, only that it never came?"

He froze in place. He stared at her for several moments. "You're..." He couldn't fathom what he was inferring. "You're taking her side in this."

"No! No, I..."

"I've been having second thoughts about this for a while." He backed off from her, and while he did, his eyes drifted upwards. When his looks fell upon her antlers, he gasped and his mouth tensed up. "No...this is a mistake. I have to go." All Kris saw when checking on them, was the older human staring at Noelle while slowly moving backwards, then turning around and running off down a path between the stands.

Kris ran back and chased him, but after just a few corners, the archer managed to shake him off and vanish behind a few monsters and a woodperson, only to be long gone when Kris made it past them. Upon looking further, his hopes of Dasher leaving a trail of feathers while dashing away, were unfounded as well.

When Kris gave up finding him right now, and came back to the others, he stared at Noelle, in a way that was no more pleasant than when Dasher did it. "What did you do?"

The tone he addressed her with, felt like needles, poking her wherever they got. She trembled. She trembled because the way Dasher reacted to her hurt. All she did was open up to him about something she didn't share with anyone else - even if just a little bit - and already, she had made a mess of everything. "I..."

"What did you say to him?" She felt like starting to cry right about now. It was all so sudden, she wasn't aware it was happening when it did. Now he was gone. Just like that. "If he doesn't want to come, we're going to have to go without him."

Their newest addition, Starlet, came closer and bent forward to speak with Kris from up close. "I hold the key to the Chariot, but no-one except Dasher can operate it. We won't make it to the other side without him." Well in that case it was settled in Kris' eyes. They had to find Dasher and convince him to look past whatever Noelle said.

He continued looking at Noelle and made a face, pulling his lips off to the side in an overboard attempt at looking upset. But he only wound up looking strange and almost made Noelle chuckle. "You know it would really help if I knew what exactly you said."

"I - uhm..." She wasn't sure what to answer. "I think he was holding in how much Temptress' loss got to her until now. I just asked him if he got the sense that she expected him to do something he didn't, and he took it the wrong way."

"So he's given up on catching or saving Temptress? What else would he get busy with instead?"

Starlet tipped his shoulder to draw his attention. She stepped closer to speak into his ear. "Dasher and Temptress have been lovebirds for as long as I remember. I doubt there is anything else that matters to him."

Headbanger twitched and gasped. "Ah! I know where he went! Where does a guy go when he's given up on everything?" Kris proceeded to raise his head and stare up at the corners of the buildings that surrounded the square. "What're you doing?"

"Checking for the best roof to jump off."

"No, dude! You've gotta drop the edge, man." She patted his shoulder, walked past him in the direction they just came from and turned around to wave him to come closer. "Come on. I'll show you."

She led them to the other side of the square. The businesses here, on the ground floor right around the square, were taverns. With monsters and the new residents sitting at the tables, drinking, talking and laughing. The dragon went far enough into one of them to be able to check all the tables for Dasher, and then left to go to the next one. And then the next one and then the next one.

It took them checking several more of those bars until they finally found him. Sulking far in the corner of a bar that lay furthest in the corner of the market square. It wasn't even facing towards it, it was on the outside. They had already been checking the bars around the square and Kris had been starting to suspect that dragon was just looking for an excuse for them to check out all the bars there were around here.

Dasher sat there, already with a half-empty mug in his hand, filled with some drink alcoholic enough that you could smell it from across the table. When without a word, Headbanger sat right next to the human and Kris and Noelle on the other side of the table, he glared at all of them. Mostly Noelle. For a while, Headbanger stared at him in anticipation of him saying something, and between sips, he did. "Go away."

When the grinning dragon leaned onto the table, her face came weirdly close to his. "Aw, come on. Wanna talk about it?" He said nothing. "It's about antler-girl, isn't it?"

He swallowed his fears and flushed them down with a good lot of whatever was in that mug. "This whole journey is pointless. She chose the Knight over me. I'm never getting her back. Even if I did, it wouldn't be sincere. At that point, I'd know that the moment someone comes along that looks more attractive, even if he's not interested in her, she's gone. I just can't believe it just ended just like that. She was everything to me. I...I..."

Now, with his mug empty, he dropped his head onto the table and buried his face in his elbow. His vest's feathers were peeling off as if he was a sick or heavily distressed bird and the feathers were his own. "I can't go on like this. Not without her." He began to sob, enough for the others to see it through he motions of his shoulders.

Kris gestured his way with an open hand. "He was just smiling and laughing half an hour ago. What happened."

"Dude." Headbanger grabbed him by the shoulder, took off her sunglasses, brushed her hair aside and gave him a long, scolding look. "Guy was just burying all that stuff. Now it's coming out all at once." Dasher mumbled up an apology in response to that and she responded to that by rubbing his back. "It's okay dude. We're here for you."

After that, Kris turned to Noelle and stared at her. Without a word, he stared and stared as they listened to a grown man crying in front of them. It was obvious to her that he was thinking something and expecting her to understand it as she usually did, but this time, she couldn't decipher from the context, what it was. "I - uh..." She could only guess that he wanted her to do something about this. After all, he blamed her for this whole situation, too.

She tried reaching for the human on the other side. "Listen. Giving up like this now isn't a solution. What happened, happened. She just found someone better than you. You just have to accept that it's over and move on." The only thing that accomplished, was that the previous sobbing, still possible to cover with the three of them around him and Ralsei and Starlet standing off to the side, was replaced with loud whines, impossible to conceal from anyone sitting at the other tables or even outside.

Now it was Noelle that the unusually concerned Susie-lookalike was reaching for. She froze mid-motion when she felt the dragon's claws grasp her. "Babe. Babe. Stop. Just stop. You're not helping." Once she had Noelle backing off and leaning against the back of the bench, she turned to Dasher again. "Dude, even if she's gone, life isn't over, right?"

Counter to what she was implying, he nodded at the notion of life being over. "You're a pretty decent looking guy. You said you used to have poems ready to recite, I've seen how you wiped the floor with goody-two-shoes-girl, you said you can use a bow, and the jokes and all that, if you bring all that back, who needs that whore, right? Bitch is out of touch with what she's missing out on. Lotsa fish in the sea waitin' to get hooked by you. You've just got to cut that out, straighten yourself out and get all that stuff back that got her in the first place. I'm sure there's someone out there who'd love for someone like you to show up in their life. Maybe for a little longer than just one trip."

It was working. He was calming down. Kris took this as to mean that a confrontational approach was what worked. He tipped at one of the arms that covered Dasher's face. "Hey. Hey." When the older human finally raised his head enough for his eyes to peer through between his wide hat and his arms, Kris pulled off one of his armor's gloves and held it with its flattest side pointing to Dasher, to use it as a mirror.

"She's right, you know. There's plenty of fish in the sea. But that won't help you if you don't come with us. Look at yourself." That was the point where Dasher understood and took Kris' gauntlet and stared at what little of a reflection of him it could conjure.

"That's all her. She did this to you. And any new girlfriend you find won't have a reason to treat you any better than she did, unless you make an example out of her. Unless you make Temptress pay for what she did. You have to come with us, you have to reach Temptress, and then you have to take all that anger you have, stop directing it at yourself, and direct it at her instead."

He started describing what he was saying both with words, and with his hands. "You have to let loose. You have to make it hurt. You have to make it hurt so badly, she'll spend months, maybe years, recovering from it. Rip her antlers out if you have to. Make cuts to her skin with a knife to bleed her out, but not enough to kill her. Unless you don't care if she dies, then you can just cut away as much as you like."

His approach didn't appear as successful as the dragon's. In fact he already saw her get ready to scold him again. And he didn't notice how his out-of-the-blue recommendation to take bloody revenge at first surprised, then terrified Noelle, until he heard her involuntary squeak, faced her, and found her pressed against the wall opposite from him. "What? Am I wrong?"

"Ah, so much young life, teeming with desire to put evildoers to the sword." Starlet was silent up until now but now, she knelt down next to Banger and grabbed Dasher's hand with her own. "Don't we know a few people like that? Remember that Judas and Legis are in the Kingdom of Heaven, too."

"Judas, Sinwielder, father Asmodeus, you know what they're like. Sooner or later, they will gather together and hold judgment over Temptress. A jury as uncompromising as them would surely see to Temptress' death. Do you want that? Do you want their judgment to go unchallenged? If you have any love left for her, shouldn't you travel after her, even if only to stay the angels' hands and save Temptress from what doubtlessly lethal punishment they will see fit for her betrayal?"

Some clear words from an old friend like this, were what it took to finally reel him in. His nose was still running, but after nodding in reaction to Starlet's point, he pushed himself back up. "So if you can't do this for yourself, do it for her."

He was still trembling when he was standing. When he turned around after paying for his drink, he still had leftover tears that needed wiping off his eyes. "I'm sorry. It was all a little much at once."

Kris stared at him, closely observing his movements while Starlet came up to him to cheer him up while he was still at the counter. Had he been holding all this all this time? The memories this brought up in him only made him more uncomfortable, but before he could go further into that, he felt Noelle tug at his cape.

"What you said earlier." She seemed very unsure and stuttered while talking to him. "You...you didn't actually mean...I mean you don't really feel this way about this, do you?" He stayed still, staring at the cup that Dasher never bothered to pick up. Still with what little was left of the liquor he had filled it with, dangling back and forth from the force left over from when the archer had gotten up. "Kris!"

She wasn't going to drop this. He didn't look back at her, he knew she knew he was talking to her. "He trusted her. Completely. You saw him. And she just tossed him away like it's nothing. It wouldn't have gotten to him like this if that wasn't the case. She did this. It's not fair. No-one should be allowed to treat someone that trusts them like this. I just sometimes feel like...if someone in this situation - someone like him - took the 'Temptress' to his 'Dasher'. And really made an example out of her. Maybe in the future, other 'Temptresses' would think twice about treating their 'Dashers' like this."

"Kris..." She shuffled closer and held him by the arm. "Is this about your dad? You've got to learn to move on. What happened, happened." He didn't feel like moving on. He didn't feel like moving on at all. What improvement was there to be had from moving on? What had anyone learned from 'moving on'?

Nothing. Moving on - to him at least - seemed like forgetting the past and being prone to repeating the same mistakes. "Kris...say something." He was trembling. Struggling not to make a similar scene to the one Dasher had made. He said nothing to her. He didn't look back at her. He just got up, and walked to the exit to wait there for the others. With his arms hanging straight down, and his hands clenched into fists.

From that point forward he ignored any of Noelle's further pleas for him to talk to her. He just made sure they all tagged along before he moved on. Through the crowds they had traversed twice now. He needed time to calm down. Noelle had really gotten to him, bringing up his father like that. He could feel that if he engaged with her any more, that he would lose control of what he said and did.

And sooner or later, Noelle took the hint and turned her attention to Dasher. She adjusted the pace she followed Kris with and walked alongside the archer. Waiting until he picked up on her wanting to talk. "Hey...I just wanted to say, I'm sorry." This wasn't easy for her.

Her voice was shaky, enough that she could assume he heard that. "I'm just - I'm sorry about what I said earlier. Reason I said it is because - I'm going through something similar to her. In my own life I mean. And I feel like if we could somehow resolve all this amicably for Temptress, then maybe it'd turn out fine for me, too."

Dasher seemed much more relaxed now. "It's all right. I overreacted. I'm sorry, too." Noelle was relieved to see the air between them was cleared.


	24. Jingle Bells

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 12

Jingle Bells

* * *

Kris spent an entire square's worth of 'browsing' the goods, brooding until he calmed down again after Noelle brought up his father and defended how he was treated. By the time he did, he still hadn't come across anything that really screamed 'new hat or accessory for Noelle'.

He was considering doing what Dasher wanted, calling it and just heading straight to the Journeyman's tower. But one last thing he wanted to try, was to ask one of the goat men that stood guard at the exits and entries of the markets for help. "Of course. If nothing at those stands speaks to you, you can always visit the hatmaker." He pointed at a nearby location on Kris' map. "But a little word of caution, he and his friends can be a little eccentric at times. They call him the crazed hatmaker for a reason."

When he arrived at the building he was sent to, he immediately saw what that guard meant. Everything around it was weirdly turned, flipped or rearranged. The lamp posts immediately upon approaching the building from any direction, were poking out not from the ground, but from the walls of nearby buildings, and sometimes the ceiling. The front entrance was covered with a little roof hanging over it in case of rain...inside a cave.

And that roof wasn't made of stone planks or carved or attached stones, but chairs. A giant impossibly wide tree peered out of its ceiling up above, and the crown of that tree spanned around the roof of the hatmaker's house. Its branches hung over the outside walls all around it.

Unlike with many of the more fitting buildings around it, its walls were all glass, every one a shop-window that spanned from one edge to the other. Displaying several layers of hats in all shapes and sizes. Small hats like berets or modern summer caps, big hats like comically tall tophats, flashy colourful headdresses you expected to see on a woman atop a wagon at a southern carnival.

The neon sign above the one that announced his name, depicted a man with a half squashed tophat and spirals in his eyes, as well as two other characters that surprised Kris at first, but on second thought, he realized he should have expected to meet in a place like this. He could see the interior through the glass doors, and he more or less saw what he expected to see.

A few mere metres away from the front door, a long dinner table was set up, with plates and bowls messily arranged and lined up with all kinds of dishes. Bicycle wheels and other parts of bicycles or more old-fashioned tricycles hung off the ceiling by strings.

Big wooden clocks lined the walls, but the actual clocks' faces with the numbers and arrows, were replaced with wheels made of bound-together rabbits, hamsters and other critters, which spun around ceaselessly with the critters still attempting to stop the ordeal by struggling to their freedom. And a circular river of floating confetti ran its course through the air throughout all of the hall, with nothing in sight that animated it.

There was nothing to incline him to believe that the door was locked or that they weren't open for business. At least on the outside of the building there wasn't. So he tried pushing the front door open and would you look at it, it opened up without problems. And the moment their little crowd began wandering inside, they were the immediate center of everyone's attention. "Who'da guessed! New customers! And it's the lightners, too."

While a man in a tattered victorian suit with an orange top hat and actual spirals in his eyes rushed down the length of the table to greet them, the man talking continued. "C'mon ye lot. Not so shy! Come in, take a seat, want some tea." He spoke with a heavy accent, as if he was straight from the highlands.

He was sitting in the middle of the table, in front of a tray of little clumps of cheese, which he raised to present to them. "Maybe some cheese?" He looked like a human in his fifties, with grey hair and a beard. Dressed in a festive getup all in purple with golden fibres woven in patterns everywhere. And to his side lay his signature staff, its top carved into three screaming faces pointing in opposite directions. But unlike a human, he had glowing yellow eyes with vertical, black pupils. It was the lord of insanity itself.

A third figure floated after the crazed hatmaker to the entrance. It was a slender, serpentine creature with a brown torso and asymmetrical arms and legs. Every arm, every leg, both of its horns and its tail, each looked like they came from a completely different animal, and looking down at them from its front end, was a horse head with a grey goatee and two yellow eyes, one almost twice as big as the other. That was Strife, the bringer of Chaos.

Both Strife and Lord were drawings of characters from a cartoon about brightly coloured horses and a series of video games, both of which must have escaped the fad box. From time to time, Asriel used to insist that the two of them drew and posted online whatever was currently popular on the internet. To increase numbers on all those metrics on their art profiles that without his brother's insisting on their importance, Kris would have paid little attention to.

But fads came and went, so Kris preferred to stow them away in a separate box, where they weren't mixed in with the rest of his stash. Whichever kind of place the fad box translated to in the dark world, they must have broken containment and found their way here.

The hatmaker kept grabbing one hand after the other and shaking them in a way as frantic as the look on his face. The floating chimera did the talking for them, while extending his bird-like hand to join in on the handshakes at a calmer pace than his friend. "What a delightful surprise to see you pay a visit to our cheerful celebrations."

He held his hand closer to Kris with his index finger curled. With a snip of his finger and a flash of light, a cup appeared in his hand in position for his finger to be urled around the grip, and a gargoyle sprinkling hot water into the cup appeared on a nearby wall. "How about some tea?"

When Kris wirelessly declined with a hand wave, the bringer of Chaos threw the cup away. The cup shattered on the floor, but each of the broken pieces grew little black insect legs and crawled away.

The prince raised an eyebrow. "Celebration?"

Strife shrugged. "Why of course." And then sped away to fly loops and messages around the river of confetti. "There is always something to celebrate, right now there is the hatmaker's newest creation and our new friend right over here."

Strife sped off to the side to draw Kris' and the others' attention to a section of the interior that they couldn't previously see. A thin wall only a few steps away from the racks of hats at the window, covered an area to the left of the dining room that made up most of it.

To their left, the same tree that towered over and spanned around most of the building, was growing with its roots plunged straight through the floor and ceiling here on the ground floor. Hanging upside down by his right leg bound to the tree by a rope attached to one of the lower branches, a young human looked back at them.

He was wearing a gambeson and old-fashioned court trousers, both covered in feathers that came in a much brighter shade of blue than those on Dasher's vest and hat. And on his face, he bore some kind of attachable ornament, all white and branching out from above and below his nose, designed to look a bit like the patterns of a snowflake.

This hanging human smiled at them. In fact he didn't look like he was hanging there against his will at all. More importantly, he was the only person Kris didn't recognize as something he himself drew, so he decided to move closer to Noelle to whisper to her: "He's some tarot card, isn't he?"

"It's the hanged man. He stands for insights and epiphanies."

Her whispering was interrupted by the hanged man himself. "Epiphanies!" His very strong voice shouted throughout the hall. "Epiphanies and the insanity that comes with them. This...itch that drives us insane, it is nothing compared to the lunacy necessary to cope with the truth. The truth unknown to most, known to you lightners, but discovered by a mere few among us. Resist the temptations of the devil, little girl, or along with the knowledge of where your paths lead and what your future holds, a world of pain awaits you as well."

"Snowflake." Apparently, that was his name, as Dasher referred to the hanged man as such when he approached him. "How did you end up here?"

Before Snowflake could answer, he was startled by the sudden change in the front. The cat that was greeting them up to this point stopped at Noelle. He began feeling up her head and fell into a kind of feverish trance. "The...the face...the antlers!"

To scare the already put-off doe even more, he began to scream in her face. "Christmas! It's christmas all over again!" His head spun around to look at a door to a walled off section of the ground floor, and after freezing for a moment, let go of her and ran around the table and towards it. "I have to make another one!" Within a second, he vanished behind the door and closed it, leaving them alone with the other three.

"Can't deny it.", the lord of insanity burst out laughing. He had to clean up his plate, since he spilled his drink in the process. "You might look like an animal, lass, but you do resemble christmas girl a lot."

The grinning chimera came back to float between the lord of insanity and their visitors. "Temptress. Her name is Temptress."

"You've met Temptress?"

"They met me." Snowflake cut into the conversation. "That's when they saw her."

Strife landed next to him. With a snip of his fingers and a flash of light, an easel with a map instead of a painting appeared, and a ruler did in his hand. "We were right around here, minding our business, when we saw an enormous castle enter the mountain range. Passed right through the rock by the lightners' hands. The moment we saw it, we rushed back inside the caves. We just couldn't allow ourselves to miss what it held in store for us. And when we reached the roof, we saw our new friend here arguing with...Temptress."

Strife was always a little smug, but he emphasized her name and grinned a little more than otherwise when he did.

"What were you arguing about?"

Snowflake shrugged, but due to his alignment, his palms wound up pointing towards the floor. "We had met the Knight. She was all starry-eyed - you should have seen her. He offered her 'power'. 'An entire realm of her own'. whatever that meant. All she had to do, was to come with him and do as he said. I told her he seemed like bad news, but she didn't want to listen, so she sawed my tree off by its roots."

Since the others had followed Dasher further into the hall to hear the hanged man talk from up close, the lord of insanity put down his wine glass and spun around in his chair to face them. "We were watching the whole thing from within hiding. We wanted ta see where it was goin'. Hattie was barely present in mind. He was off blabbering on about christmas. But the moment Temptress walked away - Ha! What'd ya know! A christmas miracle happened. Let him tell you the tale of how Father Christmas appeared in person and saved him."

* * *

I was hanging down my tree when the Knight revealed himself to her. Up on the corner of the roof of Fortune's Keep. They could see the upper part of the tree, but I was behind the entrance to one of the staircases down into the castle.

"Do your part, and once my Queen ceases power, this realm shall be yours!" That's what he told her. She was bibbering so much you could practically hear her drooling. I was expecting her to have scruples or doubts. But she didn't pay a second thought to you. Everything you had, she didn't waste one second to discard it. I should have noticed sooner, how shallow she really is.

* * *

"Hey! I'm not! That's not true!" Noelle's sudden outburst drew everyone's looks.

They all stared the increasingly nervous girl down, until Kris gestured her way with a gentle, open hand. "No-one's talking about you." Without there being reason for further interruptions, the strangely dressed stranger continued.

* * *

All he had to say was "Pledge servitude to me, do as I instruct you, and I offer you a covenant that you will not regret!"

That was all it took for her to stutter things like "Yes." and "Whatever you say, handsome knight!", over and over as if they were mantras or prayers. Like I said, I couldn't believe how shallow she turned out to be. How quickly she was utterly subservient to him. How she wasted no second thought on whether or not she should cast you aside to serve this Knight.

When the knight had left and she began talking to herself about how he would be hers, she must have heard me gasping. Because she then came around the corner and confronted me about it. She had the most frantic look on her face I had ever seen. Her eyes were wide open, and her right one was twitching. So was the side of her mouth. This new infatuation with the Knight was not healthy for her.

She screamed at me. "What did you hear? You're judging me, aren't you?" she asked. I hadn't said anything. "Stop judging me! How dare you!" I was terrified. Sweet little Temptress had turned into a fearsome harpy. Clawing at me and hitting me with weak strikes. I was already getting all dizzy again after I had just pulled myself together after our journey to this realm.

I threw up my arms and told her: "Pledging servitude to armed strangers just like that? I don't think any of this is a healthy decision."

And for a brief moment, she stopped. She didn't look any less furious, but at least she wasn't scratching and hitting me. And my estimate was right. It appeared those brief moments of silence were just her being inexplicably stunned at me having the gall to say this. She repeated herself. "Are you saying I'm not healthy? How dare you!"

I tried one more time to reason with her. "This isn't normal. Maybe you should reconsider it." I told her. But it was in vain.

She just stepped closer, grabbed onto my hair with a grasp so strong it hurt. She put all the strength she could muster into screaming the words: "I! AM! NORMAL!" right into my ear. And even after that, she didn't appear to have enough. "I don't have to put up with men like you! I HAVE THE KNIGHT NOW!"

Still fully in her rush of insanity, she summoned a chainsaw, ignored any pleas from me to stop, cut my tree off right at its stump and cast it - and with it, me - into the abyss. She doomed me to a painful death, should I hit the ground in the depths below.

My new friends watched from within hiding, dumbstruck by what they saw her do. I was so scared. I thought I was going to die. I was convinced I was going to die.

But I didn't.

She had already turned her back on me and left, considering my murder a done deed. And I didn't know my soon-to-be new friends were watching, so for a moment, I was convinced that this was it. I was to meet a sudden end. At least, that was what I thought. Instead, I was saved. By nothing short of a Christmas miracle. Something severed the tie that bound me to my tree.

And then, below me, a flying red sleigh with golden railings appeared and caught me. I landed in the back bench and it was painful, but it was already lowering itself for the impact to not injure me any further. In the front bench, sat no-one other than Father Christmas himself.

He greeted me with his signature laugh. "HOO, HOO, HOO. IT WOULD SEEM I CAME JUST IN TIME!" I immediately knew it was him.

He was a little plump man, wore the expected red robe with white pieces of fur at all ends - a bit like yours. The only thing about him that surprised me, was that behind the large white beard he wore, his skin was blue, and for eyes, he had bright yellow pupils glowing from within the black crosses painted on his face. He had sharp teeth in the same bright shade of his eyes, and a strange tail with two opposed tips.

And the sleigh was being pulled by life-sized wooden toy reindeer that came in the same colours he had under his beard and robe. With those same black stars or crosses painted over their glowing eyes.

"AND WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?" I don't know how, but somehow, even though they were hiding in the dark of a corner on the other side of an abyss, he could still see them and stopped with his carriage right in front of them.

"Christmas! Christmas! It is Christmas...the whole year!"

"Alright, could ye put yourself together a wee bit? You can make all the Christmas hats you want when we're back home." Lordy was working to restrain the hatmaker's random movements as best he could.

"YOU THREE SEEM LIKE FUN COMPANIONS! WHY DON'T YOU SHOW ME AROUND?" He took us along with his flying sleigh. It barely had space for all of us, but it worked out. We gave him directions into and through Bedrock, to this house. The moment Lordy let go of the hatmaker, he rushed into his workshop to make a new hat, while the rest of us got acquainted with each other.

All the more of a surprise when I first got here, was yet another miracle conjured up by my saviour. My tree, this very tree I'm hanging by once again, was here, built into this house, and back together, as though Temptress had never touched it. And beyond that, it quickly became apparent, that our dear hosts have a lot in common with Father Christmas.

We kept it contained to this house, but if this place confuses you now, you should have seen it when he was still here. Every corner you looked, there was another combination of objects I out of place in how they were arranged.

But as you perhaps expected, our time together was temporary. After Strife and Father Christmas were done going on a spree filling this house to the brink with unadulterated nonsense, eventually, they were tired out. "HOO, HOO, HOO. I'M ALL TIRED OUT." For a moment he pretended that this was the case, but the very next moment, he was hopping around and clapping his hands again. "THIS WAS A NICE CHANGE! WHAT A FUN! FUN! TIME WE HAD. BUT NOT ALL THINGS LAST FOREVER."

Everyone, myself included, was disappointed to hear this. "I HAVE PLACES TO BE. A FRIEND SENT ME TO COME HERE IN SEARCH OF FUN. AND I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. BUT THIS IS NOT THE PLACE I WAS SENT TO. I HAVE A CERTAIN PLACE IN MIND, AND COME WITH A CERTAIN GIFT." He summoned a staff, which came in the same three colours as his toy reindeer. The same colours his face had beneath the clothes and the beard.

"MY CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR A FESTIVE GUEST. BEHOLD: THE NORTH POLE! BUT TO MEET OUR LUCKY GIRL, I HAVE TO BE IN THE RIGHT PLACE! I HAVE TO PLANT IT DOWN IN THE HIGHEST MOUNTAINS IN THE FAR NORTH OF A BLUE CONTINENT. SAY. WOULD YOU KNOW THE BEST WAY TO GET THERE?" Not long after we did our best to give him directions, he left.

He didn't walk away, or fly away. He just bounced around, chanting: "MISCHIEF-MISCHIEF, A-CHAOS-CHAOS!", laughing, and just like that, he was gone. And his carriage and toy animals with him. Me, my tree and the clocks you see around you are the only proof he was ever here. That and the feast we had set up during his and Strife's excesses.

* * *

"When the Journeyman came back from overseas, we heard rumours of a 'Toymaker' having settled up north, and his walking toys roaming the area all around. From how they described the toys, they were much less friendly than we expected going by their maker, but the colours they described them with, matched up. I am certain that the Toymaker is Father Christmas."

"'s a pity he left us like that. I enjoyed reveling in the fun."

Strife concurred and began flying loops around Kris and Noelle again. "It was so heartwarming to meet a kindred spirit. You two look so stuck up. You could do with some chaos in your lives. While you're on your way to the fountain, why don't you pay him a visit?"

Kris pretended like he was considering it, but shook his head. "I've had enough chaos in the last two days. I'd rather if more things made sense."

"Pff, 'making sense'. Where's the fun in that? You have to let loose, embrace chaos! Bring chaos of your own! Go out of yourselves, have a little fun!"

"I'll think about it."

With his griffon hand, the bringer of chaos ruffled the younger human's hair. "That is all I wanted to hear. Speaking of, you never told us what you wanted. Surely you came here for a reason other than to hear how your friend's hanging acquaintance is faring."

At last. He feared they would never get around to this part. He gestured Noelle's way and said: "We're looking for a better hat for her."

"Ha!" The lord shuffled his chair back. "Why didn't ya say so earlier?" He bent down and pulled up a lidless cardboard box from under the table. He pushed some of the many plates and bowls in front of him to the side and put it down. Inside it was a whole bunch of identical looking hats. One of which the older-looking man picked up and threw Noelle's way.

She was startled, but she managed to catch it. It was a red hat with a long and wide band covered in white wool wrapped over a hood. At both sides, it had wool orbs hanging off strings like in the front of Noelle's robe. The hood had a very strange shape, wide upward double-corners that Kris didn't immediately see the point of. They weren't wide enough for horns like Ralsei's. "Just take that one. Oughta fit perfectly."

"Is that all right? Isn't the hatmaker going to be upset."

Both Strife and the lord of insanity waved that off like it was nothing. "Trust me, we've already got more of those than we know what to do with. When he comes back through that door, we'll have twice as many."

"All right."

Before Kris had a chance to thank them, Noelle stepped between him and the Lord of insanity,, assuming he wasn't going to, and bowed slightly. "Thank you so much." Before she got to putting it on, she took off the white ribbon. Kris stowed it in one of the bags in his inventory. The double tips of her new cap indeed fit perfectly onto her antlers. The red strings at the two ends of the hood allowed to tie both ends together and better wrap it around her head.

Strife summoned a golden mirror and held it her way. "Why don't you take a look?"

"It's...it's perfect."

"Happy to see ye like it. Now ye better get to movin on. 'cause if the Hatmaker comes out and sees ya with it, he's never gonna stop making Christmas hats."

Strife was practically pushing them towards the exit, until Snowflake calling for them prompted him to stop. "And Dasher! I'm sorry for what happened."

Dasher sighed. Reminding him of it wore down on him. "It's all right. It isn't your fault."

* * *

Even now, they weren't quite done. There was one last thing to do, one more errand to run, before they were set to head for the tower. Kris led everyone back to the Tavern Beneath the Rock and asked them to stay there. He himself descended the stairs and went down into Butcher's workshop. He tried at least, but the door was locked this time. Instead, upon further inspection, it appeared the butcher shop back up on the ground level was staffed and open. 'Staffed' was saying a bit much. Butcher was there, but he was alone.

"Hello. Do you have the sandwiches?"

His more creepy equivalent placed a bag on the counter. It was tiny, little bigger than a wallet. He could imagine one sandwich being in there, not 'a lot' like he had asked. Kris glanced down and began to stutter. "That's...that's one."

Without moving his head an inch, the butcher opened the bag, pulled out one sandwich and placed it on the counter next to it. It looked perfectly fine. A bread roll, cut in half with slices of ham peeking out where it was cut. Then he pulled out a second one and placed it next to the first one. And then a third one, and a fourth one. "Okay, okay I get it." He gestured for Butcher to stop.

He now knew the sandwich bag worked a lot like Kris' inventory bag. You could actually fit more volume inside it than its outside volume made it seem like you could. He understood that it was all as ordered and paid Butcher a sum that he believed covered the costs and gave him one of his chocolate cakes for good measure. He needed the space for his sandwich bag anyway.

Now he had a backup plan in case they ran into a Susie that he couldn't figure out how to convince to stop fighting them. Or in case the Susies learned from their mistakes and attacked in greater numbers.

He had an inventory full of cake, sandwiches to bribe succubi with, Noelle had better headgear than a simple white ribbon, they got their warning from the Drakeforger, Starlet to open the Chariot, Dasher to steer it, all preparations he could think of were made. They were ready to return to the Journeyman's Tower, so they could be taken from one ride to the next, straight across the dark ream in his and Asriel's room.

On the pavement in front of the Tower, a whole fleet of chariots had already congregated, each with formally dressed waiting and waving at the heroes. Each bearing the merchant's signature J at such a size, you couldn't miss it from any distance. The one they decided to choose, had the same several-story layout that the chariot that took them to the tower had. The page standing inside told them to get comfortable, so they did.

Kris and Ralsei lay back on the bunk beds to one side, Dasher and Banger did the same on another, only Noelle wound up staring out the window. Watching the streets and squares go by as their ride set off to leave Bedrock behind. It travelled to the very corner of the cave this city was carved into, where path on the wall allowed you travel upwards.

The path was wide and not exactly steep. Their ascent along the walls proceeded very slowly, but gradually, they were gaining altitude. And the fact that it wasn't steeper was likely the reason why the ride was as smooth and uneventful as it was.

Seeing the skyline of Bedrock, with its few landmarks like the temple and he tower sticking out, vanish below, made Noelle anxious. "So what's going to happen next?"

"We go to Asriel's bed, climb up his shelf, beat his trophies and then go home."

"What?" This was a lot for Kris to dump on her so nonchalantly. "What did you say?"

Kris opened his eyes and shuffled over to lie on his side. "Everything here is something in my room. All this..." he pointed to the window, through which at this point they could only see the upper parts of the taller landmarks. The pathway up to the cliff blocked off everything else. "...that's my stash. A lot of the drawings I've kept are there. A lot of the places are straight up copies of streets I made up. The people, too. So right now, we're under my bed. And my bed is..." He paused to shuffle a little closer to the page that listened intently from right next to Noelle. "...what's the place we're going to right now? What's it called?"

"The Fields of Despair. A grey, rocky landscape with a mountain range to the north. Lots of open area. It was perfect for loading and unloading vehicles and equipment. That was of course before the succubi took over. We're going to drop you off at the exit. We trust you can fend for yourselves. But we can't. We only run errands and transport people, we're not warriors."

The entrance at the top of the cave led right from one cliff to another. "Yep, that's as far as we go. Follow that path and the fields are right there." Right outside the rough interior walls, the ledge wound around a mountain and the outside of the continent as a whole, continued to be so.

And it had lost quite some of its colour. The grey on the inside almost blended into blue and other colours, depending on what coulours surrounding sources of light came in. The ground out here, the gravel on it, and the mountain ahead of them came in grey too, but it was a very trist, pale tone. Trees here were far and few between, but even they were as colourless as the rest.

Most just stared at it, confused at why they could practically feel the grey. It took until Dasher was done leading Starlet out of carriage, before they and Ralsei led the way. "Come on everyone! It can't be far!"

"It isn't. It's not any longer than the stretches we passed below."

The prince's encouragement dispelled the strange, melancholic stupor the other three were stuck in for a few moments. When she realized that Kris was still standing, Noelle turned around and smiled at him. "Come on." Still a little hesitant, Kris eventually got to following them. Once far enough past the rock that the entrance was carved into, they could hear the waves of the ocean rush against the rocks beneath the cliff.

'On we go', Kris thought to himself. He felt really hesitant, but time wouldn't stop passing, just for him. They had to get moving, to the Fields of Despair, to get to where they needed to go. Their trail along the path was as uncomfortable as one would expect. No-one even knew why. There just was something about this colourless place that everyone could feel.

It didn't last long though, as soon, this feeling was quickly overshadowed by them being startled by a dragon. A Grunt, resting against the roots of a grey tree, sleeping like a baby. For a moment, they were about to get ready to fight, when they realized that there was no need for that. Glad not to have said anything loud enough to wake her up, they tried sneaking past her.

A task that would prove a lot harder than expected, because she wasn't alone. The closer they got to the fields, the more of them lay along their path, all of them fast asleep. In the same vein that this place had an oppressive air to Noelle and the others, it also seemed to have a soothing effect on the Grunts. Now surrounded by enemies, their formation wasn't as loose and spread out any more. They huddled up together, all while watching out not to step on each others' toes - or paws - or hooves.

"Hey!" They were all the more startled right again, when their hopes of getting past all these Susies like that were shattered by a slightly more high-pitched version of Susie's voice. "What're you doin'?" From a path further up the mountain they were passing, someone came speeding her way down to them on a skateboard.

A dragon, with Susie's colours, Susie's hair and Susie's face, but visibly shorter than Headbanger or any of the Grunts for that matter. A tween, short enough for Kris to match in height - no, slightly outdo her even. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt with a bright orange vest over it, an oversized clock hanging off her neck, blue jeans that were so short, you could see her ankles and crass green shoes.

Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses with bright blue frames that contrasted the rest of her get up for its own sake, like the rest. She stopped in front of them, jumping up in a rehearsed maneuver that flipped up the skateboard and threw it in position for her to catch it within the same move. "You think you can just stroll right past all of us?"

Before she had time to turn to her partners in crime, she adjusted her sunglasses and flipped around the red summer hat wrapped over her head to have its front end face back. "Hey! Girls!" She walked over to one of them and shook her by the shoulders. "Look alive! We've got lightners coming through!"

Of course with a sudden army of dragons all around them, Noelle switched from being perplexed straight to instant panic. "Kris! What's that supposed to be?"

"FRESH."

Hearing Kris call her by her name without her introducing herself drew a smile from their new opponent. She bared her teeth and revealed her glittering bracers and her golden tooth. "Yeah, boy! Damn straight! You nearly got that right." While still standing, she leaned backwards and pointed at herself with both hands. "I'm the FRESH Princess. Second in command only to the boss herself. If an order's not from Axe, I ain't listenin'."

When she heard one of the recently woken up Grunts groan over being pulled out of her sleep like that, her younger lookalike turned her way. "Good to see you all comfy. Now get your ass over here! We got some liggas to clap." When she saw Noelle hyperventilate she raised her open hand, putting the golden rings on every one of her fingers on display. "Nah worries, I'm just messin'. We're not clappin' nobody. But you ARE coming with us."

"No. No we're not." Out of no-where, Kris took a confident step forward, prompting all the Grunts around them to jump straight into as much of a battle stance as was possible for unarmed dragon monsters.

Tween-Susie raised her eyebrows. "You really wanna fight? Got some balls with you guys right between us like that."

He shook his head. "We don't have to fight you. I'm prepared." Kris took out the bag and opened it up. He sort of saw something like this coming. He was glad enough that the succubi came at them one or two at a time up to this point. But he could guess that they wouldn't keep doing that forever. At some point, they'd outnumber them again.

He peeled open the compartment that he had stuffed with all those ham sandwiches Butcher gave him and pulled one out to present it to the dragons. "Who's hungry? Anyone? Anyone want a sandwich?" It didn't take more than a few seconds of holding it up and showing it to all the Grunts for the first to begin salivating.

And it didn't take her seeing it for too long before she began instinctively following the sandwich's movements like a starving animal. It was only a guess. An idea. Kris didn't know it would work, but it appeared to. Better than he expected at that.

For a moment, he considered throwing it, but they would just have fallen apart, so instead, he surged right to the most hungry-looking Grunt and held it right in front of her snout. "Take it!" She grabbed it with both hands and the snap with which she tried doing the same with her mouth, wound up more of a chomp due to the size of her mouth. He pulled another one from the bag Butcher gave him. "Does anyone else want some? You?"

One in particular looked more tempted than the others. And with her supplied with an extra sandwich, the others quickly followed. "And for you, and for you, and for you." At a worrying pace, he pulled out one sandwich after the other to pass it off to the closing in dragon girls, who were becoming less and less hesitant to get closer.

And sooner than he was comfortable with, they were so eager for each to reach for her sandwich, that they were running their hands along the rest of him to spur him into handing out sandwiches faster. He was forced to speed up to keep with their pace. It was just meat between slices of bread, and yet they craved it so badly. And the more he handed out, the more worried he grew that he might run out of them before everyone had some. With these spatially inconsistent bags, you never knew.

He kept going, passing over more sandwiches to all the eager hands. And indeed, they lasted. Eventually, all the Grunts were accounted for and had retreated to their own corners on this path. When he was finally not swarmed by dragons any more, he realized the rest of their party was still huddled together, but had moved backwards quite a bit, eager to see what exactly Kris' plan was.

Well it wasn't much of a plan, but it worked. Now the FRESH Princess stood there alone. Booing after the last few Grunts that were walking away. "Come back here, don' just walk off! Not cool, dude! Not rad at all. What the -" The younger dragon was startled when she saw another sandwich, held less than a foot away from her face.

Kris was offering her one as well and tried to sell it with a smile. "You want one, too?"

With an angry look on her face, the Princess leaned back a bit with her head raised, staring at that sandwich all the way through. And stayed that way for a while until finally, she reached for it. "Heck yeah I do. But if Axe asks, this never happened. We were somewhere else!" She was hesitant to accept it, but she accepted it nonetheless. Kris and the others passed through, but they stayed to wait for her to finish what must have been her first meal in ages.

"You guys ain't gettin' far anyway. We got stuff set up to keep you away. Now if you'll excuse me, the boss is gonna figure you got past us either way, so if I wanna outrun her, I gotta go fast." With this, she turned her hat to face forward again, got on her skateboard, rolled over to the edge of the cliff with increasing speed and leaped straight off. When Kris walked to the edge to look, he noticed she just jumped to another path further down, which she was rolling along even faster.

The others left them alone as well, the path to the fields was clear.


	25. Embodiment of an Ebon Angel

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 13

Embodiment of an Ebon Angel

* * *

Witnessing the danger of a bulk of Susies getting dismantled so easily, raised their morale and spurred them on to nigh-march around the mountain. They expected a lot. But what they wound up seeing still left them astonished. Once the path opened up to their actual destination, they found themselves reading a wide-open landscape. A valley encased by mountain ranges so steep they might as well have been walls.

They reached as impossibly high as the walls at the edges of the last Dark Realm Kris had been to. It must have been about a mile wide. The ground was uneven everywhere, and covered in dust, gravel, rocks, and short weeds and strands of grass grew in spread-out places. The mountains that were the walls of Berdly's room. And it was as grey as everything on the way here.

"Wow, Kris! Look!" Noelle was surprised in a more positive way than Kris was and expected her to be. She pointed right into the starless sky. "You can see the moon!" High above them, a pale white crescent shone down upon them.

He tried reeling in her excitement. "It's the Dark World. There's not supposed to be a moon. At least not up there."

But there was one. Very clearly. And not just that. "Come on, just look at it! Can't you appreciate a sight like the moon being there?" She slowed down and took her hand away when she realized another celestial body floating above a corner opposite from the Moon. "...and...and the sun." A ball of golden light with clearly denoted rays, as if drawn rather than an actual burning gas giant, shone down along with the Moon.

"There's not supposed to be a sun either."

Dasher broke into their conversation. "I don't know what you mean. This is The Sun and The Moon as I have always known them."

As they made their way along the dusty surface, they noticed from the shifting angle that this Sun and Moon weren't actual celestial bodies either. "The real sun and moon - I mean the light world's sun and moon are...bigger. And further away."

When walking around the fields, and comparing the angle from one place to another, it became very clear that these celestial bodies weren't far away giants, they were objects of a much smaller size that floated at a much lower height above the fields to make up for it.

"There it is!", the archer shouted with newfound excitement. Once they came far enough into the valley to pass the cliff that blocked their sight of it, at last they saw - something. "The Chariot!" The sight of the thing he referred to as such, left both Kris and Noelle dumbstruck enough to stop, and by doing so, prompt the others to do the same.

It took a moment for Kris to wrap his head around it, but when he came to think of it...of course. Of course, what else was he supposed to expect? Considering everything he had seen up to this point? Of course if the Journeyman looked like an orange celebrity who always showed off his private jet, then of course the Journeyman's 'Chariot' - a vehicle he claimed could take them across the ocean, would be..."A plane?"

It was a plane. And at the same time, it wasn't just a plane. It was a giant plane. As if the valley they had reached wasn't dizzyingly wide enough as it was, it had to be to encompass the vehicle that had landed on its edge. A reasonable landing site would not have sufficed, it was the size of a regular jumbo jet many times over. The scale and wingspan were impossible to fathom unless you saw it with your own eyes.

They were only able to take in its size because of how far off to the side towards the coast it stood. With many propellers lining the front side of its wings and supports at the ends of it to help keep it in place on solid ground. "Not just any plane." Noelle broke their stupor by walking past him. And with her leading the way along with everyone else, he followed her as well.

"It's the Spruce Goose. It's a very special plane. A quirky businessman came up with the idea of making it. When he proposed it, the politicians he hoped to make deals with to help build it, laughed at him. They laughed at him because they were convinced no-one could build something like it. When he built it, they chuckled and said it could never fly. When it took off, they stopped laughing. It didn't fly for long, but it flew, that' what matters."

"It isn't much of a 'Chariot'."

His dry remark got a chuckle out of her. "It fit with being for - it fit the occasion. The Chariot stands for overcoming challenges and obstacles and braving through the impossible, so what better for a design for it? Their dismissing his idea and low expectations became an obstacle, and he overcame them with hard work and determination."

But something was wrong. And Headbanger was the first to realize that. In a very painful way, too. She banged straight into something headfirst.

"Are you all right?" When Dasher walked up to her, he bumped into something as well. Right where Banger had tried to go.

"I'm fine. But what the hell..." The now confused dragon reached forward with her open hand. And her palm did press against something. Kris, Ralsei and Noelle wanted to know what they were feeling up. When they caught up with Dasher and banger they stretched out their hands, and those that didn't wear metal gloves, could feel a smooth surface.

But there was none. They could see the open area with the plane right in front of them. There couldn't be, could it? Kris took his glove off and began feeling up this surface all around. Upwards, downwards off to the side. When he did, Noelle did as he did and came to the same conclusion. "It's some kind of invisible wall. Like in a video game, when you're not supposed to go to an area yet, because you've got some story to clear or a boss to beat."

Come to think of it, a wide-open area like this valley was a lot like an arena for something like that, too.

The prince had a different approach to it. He formed silhouettes of light and brushed them against the wall. He closed his eyes and after taking some time to pick up the sensation it gave him, he concluded: "It's magic. Not just that, I've felt it before. It's the same kind of magic that stopped me from moving my door around anywhere in the castle. But it can't be someone casting it everywhere at the same time, right? It's got to work on its own. Which means it's like an enchantment. It has to be bound to something."

The prince searched around a little more, and eventually called for them. "There! That's got to be it!" When they hastily followed him quite a stretch further to the right, what he was pointing at, was an idol on the other side of the wall. A little effigy of a bearded rat monster, dressed in a plain, loosely hanging robe, nailed to a wooden cross by his hands and feet.

"This is it." He cast some spell to test something out. "Yes, this is definitely it. It's a ward. Wards are magic, but they don't just magically appear out of nowhere. It has to have been cast and put up by someone."

"It was put up by me!" With audible winces between breaths when she ran their way, a familiar looking purple dragon came their way. What once was a devout nun's robe, covering her up as it should, now only hung as loose strips off her arms and legs, hanging onto her by the most solid threads.

You could see in her step that she was weakened by the visible, bleeding wounds that littered her arms and legs. In fact, her left arm was injured so badly, she kept it covered with her right hand. "And I am not taking it down, lightners!" Faith had somehow woken up again and broken free.

"How do you keep resisting my pacify spell?"

This only made her blurt out her answer. "I warded off an entire continent and a castle the size of a country from your portal sorcery. You think I don't know to protect myself against some measly sleeping tricks?"

"That was you? That was all you?" Going by how much the prince was taken aback, Kris could only surmise that this was a feat he didn't expect.

The nun shook her head. Half the time, her hair got between them and her face, and the last stripe of cloth that was once part of a full coif, fell of her head in the process. "The Knight showed me how to imbue my crosses with the wards that do that. I just did the work once I knew. Sorry, but it's the end of the line for you. Even killing me won't take them down. You are stuck here until I dispel them, and I will do no such thing until the Knight arrives."

The prince stepped forward. "Why are you helping him?"

Headbanger took that as her cue to follow up. "Yeah, you could just join us, ya know. Seal the fountain, save the world and all that jazz."

An animalistic hiss burst out of Faith and she opened her mouth to point her sharp teeth their way as she did it. "Don't make me laugh! You're a bunch of deviants! You could never be real opposition to the malicious forces out there."

Kris felt he had to step in here. "So because we can't be real opposition against those 'malicious forces', you have to help those 'malicious forces' stop us? Why not just let us try?"

That only made the dragon's furious gaze turn his way. "What do you mean?"

He stuttered for a moment. "I mean - isn't that exactly what the Knight is?"

She raised her head. "Is he? Because you're a bunch of deviants! For all I know, you could be the real malicious forces!"

Now Dasher came closer, leaned against Headbanger and flashed the roughed-up nun a wink. "If it's deviants you're against, isn't the Knight the last person to help?" He waited until he was sure he had her attention before he went on. "I've seen the guy's armor. He's got taste, but if depravity is a deal breaker with us, why isn't it one with him?"

"And Temptress.", Kris added. "You keep calling us deviants, but isn't she the biggest one out there?"

"What?"

"He's got a point." Headbanger moved on and leaned over Kris' shoulder with one arm like a - well, like a school bully. "She had everything going for her. Good boyfriend, friends that love her, a big home, she had it all. But she threw it away, just because she craved that Knight's codpiece so damn much. If sex stuff controls her life choices like this, don't you think she's gone way, way off the deep end?"

The rage accumulated from all the backtalk was boiling over in faith. So much so, her clenched fists trembled, and when she heard Headbanger judge Temptress like that, she screamed: "ENOUGH! I will stop you for good, here and now!" She ran away - at least at first they expected her to, but she ran closer to the centre of the area in this valley that they actually could move around in.

And there she stopped, faced them, closed her eyes and put her hands together. A sad sight, seeing a dragon with even more ruffled up hair than normal, praying with barely anything of her robe left and cuts everywhere.

"Angel that thou dwelleth in thy Heaven! I speak to you in search of strength in these trying times! I beseech you to recognize these deviants as the threat they are. Imbue me with the power to defeat them!"

In the upper corner of his eye, Kris noticed something moving. The Sun and The Moon were shifting around to different, more evenly aligned corners of the valley. "I beseech you to strike them down with lightning, enrage the seas they seek and sunder the earth beneath them." Both the Sun and the Moon each began casting a slowly extending ray of light straight down to the nun praying between them.

"Father ours who thou art in Heaven. I beg you to see them for the threat they are, for they pursue the legend. Thy Kingdom will not come, thy will will not be done, so long as the legend runs risk at passing! In the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, THEY MUST BE DESTROYED!" When she opened her eyes, they were glowing from the inside with golden light.

In a very involuntary-looking contortion, she was made to stand up and spread her arms left and right as though she was the one crucified rather than her idol. As from her pose, a golden cross began shining out, an unseemly ringing hailed from above, as fashioned from that same golden light, two symbols glided from the Sun and the Moon through their rays that met on the nun.

From the Moon came a crescent and a star. From the sun, an encircled star of David. The cross left her and floated at one side of her. The crescent and star took place at the other. And like a ruler lording over its subjects, the star of David took position above both of them.

Inexplicable currents of wind surged around her as the party, exempting Starlet, came closer. "What is all this shit?", the rock star asked.

"It's the symbols of every religion that believes in angels as celestial guardians. Every religion that has at least one sect or school dedicated to the Angel!"

The six-pointed star and its outer circle expanded itself, as the currents of wind began spinning around the nun and lifting her off the ground, with the Sun and Moon's spotlight following her on every inch. This continued until the six-pointed star's inner corners still spanned around the nun without touching her, and once she was in position in the middle of it, it began to spin.

The cross and the crescent both began floating up as well. Each one stretched and spanned itself out, deformed and reformed as giant wings to both sides of the circled star around the nun. Spanning as wide as both edges of the valley.

A pyramid of three golden triangles appeared beneath Faith and the lower ones made way for the upper one turning itself upside down and switching places, the middle one settling at the bottom with its pointy end downwards and the other two pointing up from above between it and the rest. Using the spinning star of David as the circle in the centre, the shapes of golden light completed an enormous Delta Rune.

Now with her hands free, Faith held one in front of her with its palm pointing down. Beneath it, the same oversized bible they had seen her summon before, appeared in the air. Open from the get-go. But from below, they could see that the letters on its cover were glowing the same way so much else around her was.

She began reading from it, with a voice so loud, they could hear her from down here as if she was right here. It echoed their way the same way as the voice of a pastor within the acoustics of a church. "Sun and Moon stood still in the glint of your flying arrows." The moment she said that, a hail of arrows soared up into the sky behind her, turned and began moving straight to Kris and the others.

"Arrows! Dodge!" He urged them to move aside and shortly after they did, the ground where they had stood before, lit up and the arrows rained down and dug their arrowheads into the ground.

But once they escaped the hail of arrows, Faith continued: "...at the lightning of your flashing spear!" Above Faith, dark clouds appeared and grew thicker and thicker. In front of her, a spear appeared and realigned itself to point straight at Noelle. A voltage so high coursed through the spear, you could see little jitters of blue lightning flare up throughout it. Kris grabbed Noelle and when the spear began charging down her way, pulled her to the side.

They escaped the spear itself, but with the charged spearhead dug into the ground, the attack wasn't over. A little off to the side from everyone, a lightning struck the ground, and they were made all the more vividly aware of how close it struck by how there was no delay between seeing and hearing it.

Then, quite a little further behind them, another lightning struck the ground. It wasn't over, the spear must have somehow charged the ground and these lightning strikes were discharges, of which there were going to be more. They were going to get hit, unless... "Noelle!" He kept his grip on her upper arms as tight as before and shook her. "Noelle, Tendervines! I need you to make vines! Make them tall! And not near us!"

She was as panicked as the situation warranted. Squeaking with an open mouth, she raised her staff and what he asked for, followed. Thorned tendrils grew out of the ground around them. But they weren't tall enough to reach more than maybe a few feet above them. She tried again and put more force into the magic that grew the vines. A shift in the lighting around them distracted her.

The Sun and Moon stopped shining onto Faith as she had already drawn all the power she needed. The spotlights vanished and the Moon began shifting again. It positioned itself in a different corner from where it was before, and shone a new spotlight, right onto Noelle. She could feel the magical energy coursing through the light. She could feel it fill her, she could feel how minimal effort on her part exerted strong magic currents.

The moon was often associated with fertility, and the growth of plants. Many people made offerings to their lunar deities hoping that it helped grow crops. It seemed this 'Moon' was blessing her now as well, as when she next tried to grow vines, the results bursting out of the ground were of a multitude of her regular vines' size. The one stalk she grew was wider than a fully grown tree. And that was just its tip. The rest, if she had made it grow further, would have been even wider.

In different places around their party, thorned, brown vinegrowths burst out of the grey, dusty ground and extended themselves up into the sky. One was hit by a lightning and almost immediately caught fire. And the further up in the sky the others reached, the sooner the same happened to them. One after the other raised itself up only to be struck by lightning, slowly transforming the landscape into a forest of burning stalks.

To their relief, there was a limit to it though. Eventually, the thunder stopped, the storm waned. "Wait!" Kris immediately saw a reason to let go of Noelle and rush to the others. Dasher had already taken position with his bow and was about to nock an arrow to aim for Faith. "Wait, we still need her to take down the ward! We can't kill her!" Ralsei was releasing his pistol as well, but took it down when he heard what Kris said.

This drew understandable anger from the archer being denied his one chance at living up to the title. "Then what's your plan?"

Kris paused and checked back on the nun. She floated above them, as curious about his idea as Dasher was. "Sinwielder said you have a ring. Show it to her."

He was taken aback by his out of no-where suggestion, but the archer obliged. He pulled out a little box wrapped in smooth cloth sewn onto it with a precision not possible by older means, opened it and presented it to the nun while Kris turned to her. "Look at this!" He pointed at the box. "Dasher had a ring! An engagement ring! They were well on their way to getting married, to forming a holy bond!"

The omnipresent character her voice took on didn't make the way the nun responded any less fierce. It did the opposite. "That bond was not yet formed! It doesn't count!"

"As far as their trust for each other went, they already were married, and she broke his trust. In all but formalities, she broke a holy bond. Faith! Someone living up to your name would either want us to stone her to death like the old testament says to, or offer her forgiveness like the new one does. But we can't do either if you don't let us get to her!"

"Silence! I will not have someone such as you talk to me like that! It seems I need to go back to the beginning!" She turned the pages back, way back, and continued to read from it. "And god said onto Noah: 'The end of all life has come before me - for its creatures filled it with violence. I will now destroy them, along with the earth itself! So build a wooden Ark! Make it with..."

She continued, but both lightners recognized what this was. If she could summon arrows, spears and lightning, then she could summon the great flood, too. And right on cue, the clouds above them renewed themselves and turned much more voluminous, to the point where they covered the entire sky in all directions. The human turned to his classmate again. "Your Tendervines are a lot like wood, they might float in the water!"

When she shook her head, it had already begun to rain. "I can't just magic up an entire ark!"

He grabbed her again. "It doesn't have to be an ark, just big enough to hold us. I'll guide you!" He drew his sword and pointed at a spot on the ground between the still burning stalks. When a vine began sprouting from there and following the movements of his sword with its growth, he quickly formed a small but ever expanding outward spiral and towards the middle of its planned height, drew it so wide he had to run a circle just to reach to the width with his sword.

He gave it an arc in the front that allowed to support an entrance, and then, because he purposefully drew it wide enough, made her make additional, orthogonal strands that held it together and prevented the spiral from just falling apart. "Quick! Everyone get in!" By the time its completion had come far enough for him to say so, in spite of how wide and open in several directions this valley was, the water already stood all the way up their ankles.

Noelle waited until everyone including Starlet was done climbing into the claustrophobia-inducing, and uncomfortable interior. Then she closed off the entrance and from the base of the same, singular stalk she made their vessel with, grew a mountain-high support structure that held and lifted their carriage up further and further. She even added a second one to better hold up the 'Ark' and keep it from breaking off the stalk it grew from. A feat like this left her feeling weak.

It seemed there was a limit to how far the Moon's blessing lasted. The rest could only watch what was happening through the few cracks between the vines that there were. The valley filled up with water. The invisible wall shutting them off from the Chariot didn't let it through either, it acted as a dam.

In the worst case, Kris expected it to vanish or them to be swept right over and past it, in which case there was still a chance that they would end up on the ocean and could use it as an actual boat instead of the Chariot.

But it didn't get this far. By the time the actual flood somehow came rushing through the entrance from the path above the coast, Noelle's wooden tower already stood so high, even the peaks of the mountains corresponding to the walls in Kris' room didn't look that unreachable any more. As he guessed, most of the force the wave would unleash only affected things that were further below.

By the time it rushed over the mountains to the west high enough to reach and rip Noelle's makeshift boat off its support structure, most of the water had already crushed against the ward and it only launched them against it with a fraction of the strength Kris worried it would have. It crashed them against the apparently infinitely high invisible wall, before the water already began running down. With them floating on top of it, the lowering water level also lowered their cocoon much more gently than it could have.

At last, back on the ground, Headbanger saw an opportunity to take that axe they bought for her off her back and put it to use, chopping at the vines covering the hole. Outside, Noelle's previous stalks were no longer on fire. Most were still intact, some were pulled out of the ground with their roots and crushed against the ward blocking their way. In what places there once had been grass or other plants, the earth was ripped open and the plant life strewn around between the puddles that covered the surrounding area.

With her head raised in a display of her arrogance, Faith towered over them with all the components of the Delta Rune shining as brightly as before. "So what now? I don't think you should be this judgmental about Temptress."

Kris twitched. This was the common denominator. Judging Temptress was what really struck a chord Faith. This was the way to get through to her. He made sure that everyone was okay and out of Noelle's successful mini-ark and then stepped forward and pointed up at Faith again.

"Faith! Temptress is guilty as sin and you know it! Her greed for power made her listen to the Knight. Her lust turned her away from the man she loved. And who loved her back tenfold! She isn't even doing what the Knight says, I heard Axe say that! Her mental sloth is keeping her from being diligent even when she's betraying everyone. And worst of all is her pride. Her unwarranted pride. She didn't betray everyone who loved and trusted her, just because she wanted to rule a Dark Realm. She did it because she thinks she's out of Dasher's league. She thinks she's better than all of them. She thinks she's above everyone else. She thinks she is above being judged! And apparently, so do you! If this isn't the worst kind of pride, then I don't know what is."

"BE QUIET!" She snapped at him. With a force in her voice strong enough to make everyone including him pull together. "I will need something a little more targeted." She flipped the pages forward, far, forward. "And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet and I saw a star fall from heaven onto the earth, and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit!"

As expected, far away from where they stood, at an edge of the valley, the winged figure she described appeared and what was probably the key, soared down from the sky and hit the ground like a meteorite. "Fifth angel -trumpet - Revelation! It's the book of Revelation. She's summoning locusts. We can't let a single one of them get to us! We need fire. They're not normal locusts but they're still insects! Fire will help!"

Noelle was getting visibly tired, but she was aware of the situation, so she just pushed herself to make them a ring of vines and even made it into a little wall for Headbanger to begin setting on fire.

When the angel in the distance turned the key, a crater opened up and black smoke rose up from within. Not long later, so did swarms over swarms of insects. When they came, everything they could do was hope Headbanger cover the incoming hordes in fire. Here and there, Kris and Dasher used their sword and epee to cut down the few of them that got through before they could sting anyone.

But with this threat averted, the nun didn't give him time to think of something to tell her. "Perhaps it needs something more autonomous to deal with you!" She went right back to flipping pages. "The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up. And he let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground. And all..."

"Samuel?" It could have been the book of Samuel. But where was she going with this? "Oh no..." When she went on to bring up he Philistines and opposite from them, a portal into a desert-looking area opened up, it was clear what she was doing.

Headbanger couldn't help but ask: "What the hell are those?" Through the portal came unusually short, bearded monsters with bandages for shoes, skirts and crude leather chestpieces covering only the centre of their chests, hanging off their shoulders by leather bands so narrow, they might as well be suspenders.

Up until now, it wasn't a regular battle, so he had to reconsider their situation. Those Philistines were a magic attack. They weren't real, not even in the sense of being a darkner. "They're the Philistines. The rightful owners of the holy land. We'll have to just fight them. David killed one by shooting him in the head with a slingshot, so they're not invincible."

He figured the best decision was to at the very least injure and pacify them, if not straight up kill them. He got down to giving everyone instructions like he used to with Berdly and Susie. "Ralsei, keep your chocolate cakes on-hand and come with me. Dasher, get to shooting them. Headbanger, take that axe and come with us. When I say 'fire', you breathe fire. Noelle..."

He paused, and then he just patted a nearby vine pillar that somehow hadn't caught fire from the ring of vines. "Stay back. We'll handle this somehow." Even he could tell the temporary burst of power on the panting deer's part was letting up. She was running low on energy, so she was to stay behind with Starlet.

With Dasher following with some distance, he led Ralsei and Headbanger down a deliberate route where they almost always had one of Noelle's vine stalks between them and the one archer their enemy had. The moment they were close enough to engage the enemy, he shouted: "Fire!" With the enemy still standing in a row, the bursts of flames coming from the dragon they brought hit all of them and after a few seconds, they caught fire.

She did this at a price though. While Kris and Ralsei were busy charging at the first two and Dasher aiming for the third one, the archer had the time and distance he needed to shoot her. She fell down and the moment he saw what happened, Dasher put the bow away and ran for her.

Kris didn't waste a second in exploiting how thin and ineffective their armor was by burying his sword in one of them, pushing him aside and doing the same with the other. The third of the four Philistines lay on the ground with an arrow in his head, but the archer was still untouched. With the first two pacified, with one move of his hand, Kris pushed Ralsei their friends' way with enough force to signal for him to help them.

His whole body contorted with pain when a point blank shot from the enemy archer, piercing the chestpiece of his armor, almost brought him down as well. But he forced himself through the pain, charged right at the last Philistine standing and hacked away at his arms, too.

The prince pulled the arrow out of the dragon. By the time he came back to Kris, the last of their enemies was already on the ground, all he had to do was use his pacify spell and then tend to Kris' wound as well. As soon as the last of Faith's summoned soldiers lay defeated, they dispersed into smoke, as though they had never existed. They all made it through in one piece. Glad that this was over, they came walking back to Noelle and Starlet. Seeing them still standing made the winged dragon seethe with rage. "Faith! Listen."

"NO!" She screamed down at him. The angrier she got, the faster the star of David around her spun its circle. "I was on the right track! I need something autonomous, but I need to go bigger!" She seemed to have a clear idea of which page she was looking for this time. "Here it is. 'The land we passed in our search devours its inhabitants! Everyone was huge! We saw the Nephilim - the descendants of Anak come from them. We seemed like locusts compared to them - and as such they saw us!' "

In the distance, in another edge of the valley, as far away as one of her wings reached, another portal opened, but a much bigger one. Through it stepped someone in very light, crude leather armor similar to that of the Philistines. A 'human' with bright skin but long black hair and an equally messy beard. Except that 'human' was over fourty foot tall. He dwarfed even most of Noelle's vine stalks. A biblical giant. Known as a Nephilim. Kris didn't have much time.

He had to come up with something to deal with this one. Arrows and swords weren't going to do much, he was too big. He looked around in search for an idea. And he found something. "Everyone follow!" The largest of Noelle's vines, the support structure for their 'boat', was tilted by the great flood, but for the most part, it was still standing. If he could bring it down on the giant somehow, this would give them a chance to take him out. He tapped Dasher's shoulder. "I need you to shoot him."

"That won't do anything."

"I just need you to keep his attention. You don't have to hit him, just make him follow you!" While Dasher ran off to distract the giant, Kris tapped Headbanger's shoulder and asked her to help him cut a wedge into the supporting stalk that kept this thing from falling over. She had an axe after all, it made sense to make her chop down something that resembled a tree. The fact that she could just set it on fire to help burn their way into the fibre helped as well.

They both got to chopping and burning as quickly as they could, but his plan wasn't working out the way he hoped. Their progress in cutting the supporting stalk was much slower than Dasher's progress in luring the giant around it and where he had to stand for it all to work. "Faster! Faster!"

But it wasn't enough. By the time the Nephilim stood under the structure, they were nowhere near done. What he didn't expect, was that despite working miracles and exhausting herself to this point, Noelle still managed to muster the strength to help them.

She made another unusually wide stalk burst out of the ground and grow in a curve to press itself against the already close-to-falling-over spiral of talks and pressed them down, until the part they were chopping away at broke and the entire thing collapsed right on top of the Nephilim. Dragging him down onto the ground as it did so. Now came the precarious part. The giant was pinned down with both his arms and couldn't get back up.

But he wasn't dispersing into clouds of smoke like the Philistines. They still had to go in for the kill. Noelle understood what they needed and created a smaller stalk. Kris, Dasher, Ralsei and Headbanger, they got on top of it, before she made it grow and extend itself over the giant's body, so they could jump down onto his chest and run for his head. he was struggling and made standing on him a struggle of its own through the only surface they had to stand on, quaking about.

But with a few well-aimed shots at key moments when he stopped moving, their archer was able to lodge an arrow right into each of the giant's eyeballs. Headbanger tried reaching far enough to hit his skull, but she came nowhere near that. Kris at first struck randomly, then called for Banger to help him. Together, they got onto a more secure position on the giant's upper chest and began cutting into his neck.

It was an ordeal that took balance, patience, and all the strength they had. An endless struggle to strike at his neck, move back and forth to not lose balance and get shaken off. At least not until there were wide-open wounds on his neck. Once they were gaping wide with streams of blood already having flown out and only thin strings of skin separating them, the dragon among them readjusted her sunglasses and shouted: "Hey! Check this out!"

She leaped straight onto the neck buried her axe inside the wound on one end of it, and ran down its length pulling her axe through the cuts on the surface. Tearing them all into one huge gashing wound. This was it. They had dealt as much damage as they could from here. The giant's neck was already wide open and he was still roaring and struggling. They jumped off of him on the opposite side from the dragon.

And from both sides, they began attacking his neck. Him, Headbanger, Dasher, each kept the giant from focusing on anyone of them for too long. Whenever he turned to Headbanger, Kris would bury his sword in the back of the giant's neck, and vice versa, when he turned his attention to him, she would do the same.

They had been left wondering how much this creature could take, when finally, it and the blood that had spilled around from its wounds, turned into smoke, rose up and vanished. Without him in the way, the vinestalks crashed down, shaking the ground enough to make everyone stumble.

This time, when approaching the shapes of golden light, he didn't give her any time to continue her tantrum. He spoke immediately, and with a growing impatience in his voice. "A real faithful nun would do what she can to make Temptress repent for her sins, and here you are, helping her indulge them!"

"Quiet! Shut up! It's like I said! A bunch of deviants like you could never truly oppose her!"

"Then why are you so afraid of letting us try?"

Her snarls grew all the louder. "That's it! It seems I have to take a page out of the lord's book on how to handle deviants!" She flipped back to a part close to the beginning, but this time she announced what it was ahead of time. "Ah, there we are, the culling of Sodom and Gomorrah!"

"Sodom and Gomorrah - Everyone, close your eyes. There will be flashes of light and if you see a single one, you'll turn into a salt pillar!" He held off on doing so and turned to Noelle, grabbing her by both shoulders again. He was out of ideas to solve this without her help. "We need your special attack one more time."

She was panting, still catching her breath from how much summoning these giant vine stalks up to this point wore her out. She was so weak she struggled to even stand. She was driven so much to desperation, she had tears in her eyes and a trembling voice. In fact, all of her was trembling. She shook her head. "I can't do this any more, it's too much. Please..."

"I don't know what else to do! She's going to make sulfur - well, something that burns rain on us. The boat isn't going to be enough. I need you to make a ceiling out of vines, and a new one before that one burns up, and a new one before that one burns up."

"No...No, I can't..." Under helpless bibbering, she kept begging him to reconsider, but he wouldn't let up. "It's too much, it's - huh?" Her eyes widened and whatever caught her attention also distracted her enough for her to stop crying.

She was looking straight at a light, and apparently, Kris was the source. From within his chest, a bright red heart symbol began shining against the darkness around them. It was happening again. Shimmering waves of red light extended themselves out of him and connected to her hands and staff. The same red light glowing from him, began shining out of her eyes. "What is...it's so much...what is this?"

"It's happened before. With Berdly and Susie." Their time was running out. New clouds covered the already black sky, shielding away even the light of the Sun and Moon. The sound of thunders from above announced that it would soon be too late. He just had to hope this was somehow a way for him to give her new strength. "Noelle..."

He pulled her closer, closed his eyes and lifted her up a bit so he could ease the burden of standing, while he held her in a tight embrace with his arms wound under hers. A real hug. Not a Kris-hug. A normal-person-hug. Only when in the flickering lights of an impending doom, she actually felt it, she became very aware of how in all those years growing up together, this was a first. Affection in public AND open to physical contact like a normal person. A second first today.

"...I'm sorry for not trusting you. I know it really upsets you and I'm sorry. You did everything you could to deserve my trust. I never trusted anyone because I was afraid." Now he was the one trembling. Even though Kris knew he could start over if he died, this death somehow got to him. In part, because he was long grasping at straws and couldn't believe they made it this far without dying in the first place. "But you're the only one who can do this. I trust that you can. I trust you with my life."

"I'm scared."

"I know it's possible. You just have to try."

She hesitated. But when another, louder thunder from above spurred her out of her stupor, she panicked. She clenched her eyes shut too, raised her staff with both hands, slammed its bottom end onto the ground, and screamed off the top of her lungs. As she did, an earthquake shook the ground all around them, as giant tendrils - already as wide as cars only a metre into their length - sped out of the ground and surged into the air.

More and more quakes, more and more giant stalks burst upwards. Formed entire walls and curved themselves to the side to give everyone shelter. Wherever the vines didn't cover the ground, fire rained from above, drying and eventually setting the remaining stalks ablaze all over again.

She never stopped screaming. She just kept conjuring wave after wave after wave of vines, each bigger than the last. Channeling all this newfound power she suddenly had into turning their surroundings into a burning thicket - almost a jungle grown entirely out of thorned vines. When the middle of one 'ceiling' fell off above their heads, she created a smaller wall to catch it and make it roll off further away where none of them were standing.

This went on for god knew how long. Kris just held on for dear life, and in her own way, so did Noelle. Eventually, she ran out of breath, and with that, her wordless outcry died down. But this newfound strength coming from the red light seemed limitless and so the vines kept coming. "It's okay, I'm here." Kris was already giving up on it and expecting to soon find himself back at the light before any of this started.

"I think...I think I can do this." When he let go of her in his confusion, this connection between them was as strong as ever. She could feel it filling her with more power than the moon did. The entire valley must have been spilling over with layers of branches as big as the tunnels of underground train stations and still, her strength wasn't running out. The red light kept replenishing it. "I think - I think I can keep this up! I really can! We're going to make it!" She raised her staff and continued summoning more vines to cover the ones already covering them.

This attack lasted longer than every one before it, but even this one didn't last forever.

It ended, and they could tell, because the flashes of light were so bright, they noticed each one even with their eyes closed, and they also noticed when they stopped happening. Everyone remained still, even after the burning rain and the flashes ended. With her staff raised, and a continuous stream of new vines more than replacing the last burning ones, she led them out of the crammy spot they had stayed in for so long, to an equally crammy area closer to the mockery of an Angel that Faith had become.

After covering even Faith with a wall of vines, instead of leaving it that, she made it retract itself by the vertical end, pulling the wall further and further down onto Faith. In this impenetrable thicket she had turned the valley into, there were no open areas anymore. Just wound thorned walls everywhere.

But from here, they could see the nun, allowing Noelle to summon an entire wall of vines, raise it up right behind Faith's back, wind it over her, and eventually striking and dragging dragging her down until she could have them hold and constrict her on the ground. The shapes of light around her just followed the nun's movements and phased through ground and vine walls alike.

Desperate and frantic over them having gotten to her like this, Faith struggled to try to break free, but the grip of the plants wrapping themselves around her was too strong. "No! No, no, no, no ENOUGH! CEASE!" She raised her bible, pointed at it with one index finger, and from it shot a lightning bolt that set the holy book on fire. She lifted it up and tried throwing it at Noelle, but this was when Kris and Ralsei stepped in to block the way. With a swipe of his shield, he slammed it to the side. "GOD DAMN YOU DEVIANTS, YOU'LL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!"

With a scream of her own, the shapes of light that still shone through the burning wood around them, shrunk together and concentrated themselves until all there was left was a pair of normal-sized, but blindingly bright wings extending themselves from both sides of her back.

She summoned something that looked like a dagger, made out of that same golden light, but in solid form, held it in her hand and buried its pointy end in one of the vines holding her. Under a disturbing crackling sound, the vine dissolved right before their eyes. And this started a chain reaction of the same thing happening, rushing across the insurmountable cluster of them that had grown around them by now.

The vines, the flames - in a matter of maybe twenty seconds, it all vanished and dissolved into nothing, until they were back to being nothing but a few people on a wide open landscape. Except that their battle, the rain, the flood, the fire, it had left behind puddles that even the fires didn't completely remove, patches of charred earth and stone were everywhere and there were holes and unnatural shapes in the ground where once the vines had grown from. Their battle had taken its toll on their surroundings.

"I'm tired of you treating this like a game, human! Face the wrath of the Angel!" With a speed so tremendous, it made following her movements impossible, she shot right to him and gave Kris a powerful kick, launching him several metres away from everyone else. With a grin, she came closer and pointed the same index finger he had seen shoot a lightning bolt at the bible before, at him. And electric currents flickered at its tip already. "DIE, HUMAN, DIE!" she screamed, strengthening the gesture pointed at him.

Then she froze. "I SAID DIE!" She shook her index finger again. The flickering currents were gone. And she seemed confused at the acute lack of electricity shooting from her finger. "I said...what's going on? Why isn't - argh!"

A ray of light so faint, everyone had seen it but no-one believed it was there, gained enough intensity for them to register that it was really there. It was cast onto Faith and as it grew stronger, she began writhing around in place under audible aches. So much so, she collapsed in place, struggled to get back up and failed. All her muscles trembled. She was in pain, excruciating pain. Enough so for everyone, even Kris to understand.

The light was being cast by a large hooded figure, dressed in a white cloak and gloves. A grown woman floated in the air a little away from both him and the others, ten feet above the ground. Very warm-looking, stuffed boots were wrapped around her already wide feet and legs, and equally thick gloves with royal blue stripes at their wrist were wrapped around her large hands, as she stretched one of them out shooting the same ray that had Faith drenched in physical pain.

"No! What is...no!" The same light that was tormenting Faith, forcibly raised her back up as if ghost hands were holding and moving her about against her will. Her wings and the circled star that had vanished inside her, grew again and removed themselves from her body, while she was struggling to free herself from the wider woman's grip. The wings turned back into a cross and a crescent with its star.

Then all three religious symbols floated above her. The star of David and the circle around it barely changed at all, they only grew in size. The cross' vertical bar shortened itself, while the horizontal one shifted itself over to the centre and doubled in length. The crescent lost its star.

Then they rearranged themselves. The stretched-wide cross occupied the middle between the star of David and the crescent. The crescent attached itself to the opposite flat end of the cross and shrunk in size. The golden glow emanating from those symbols faded. A discomfort-inducing dark-purple one took its place.

Once the three symbols had merged into a new, completely different one, which realigned itself to point diagonally upwards with the small crescent at its end, its final form looked vaguely like a 'female' symbol but pointed to the upper right instead of downwards. It then turned completely black and that purple glow filled the air around it.

Then, the symbol began to move. It raised itself further into the air, and off to Faith's side. With a little distance to work with, it surged down to her, gaining more momentum along the way, and smashed itself onto her shoulder.

When it arrived on it, the dragon screamed in pain as her soon removed hand revealed that it was burning itself through the shredded fabric, deeply into the flesh of her shoulder. It did this so aggressively, you could see the orange glow from the heat on her shoulder and hear the hissing of the evaporating liquids within the shoulder it was burning.

Then, the symbol's own corporeal form and the glow it emitted, vanished. But it left behind its mark, its form branded onto the dragon's skin in a way no-one could ignore or even overlook. After that, everything fell silent. Their unknown saviour floated further up into the sky and away, without a word. Giving them no opportunity to thank her for her help, or ask her who that was or who she was.

The sounds of battle, the crackling of burning wood, the sounds of earth shifting and making way for giant plants to grow out of them, everything had faded and made way for the howling wind that coursed through this valley.

Having long gotten back up, Kris walked closer to the barely covered nun until he couldn't walk any closer without stepping on her. He stared at her, and apparently, she could feel it. Seeing as she raised her head with a contemptuous look on her face and spoke only through her clenched teeth. "Go ahead, lightner, do your worst!"

She was still writhing in pain, her right hand grasping her left shoulder. And it hurt so much, it contorted into a claw. He stared at her for a while, until she gave up on giving him that look and dropped her head back onto the ground. "You know." He finally began. "I never wanted to 'do my worst'. I tried talking about this from the beginning."

"Ugh. As if that matters. You unrepentant degenerate will never be true opposition!"

He walked to her side and sat down on the ground with his legs folded up. "You keep saying that. But I don't think so."

"Hm?"

"Look, let's say everything you think about me is true. So what if I'm not perfect? What if no-one here is perfect? So what if nothing and no-one is perfect? I want to make it through all this. Maybe improve things along the way, we all do. And Temptress doesn't. That's what matters. If you're going to try to stop everyone who isn't perfect from improving anything, doesn't that just mean that because no-one can improve without you getting in the way, no-one will ever be perfect enough for you? Just because this or that person isn't perfect enough for you AS OF YET?"

"Come again?"

"You want everyone to be perfect. I get that. But if you try to stop anyone who isn't perfect from improving anything or anyone, no-one will ever be."

"Really? To add insult to injury you accuse my struggle of being self-defeating?"

"I guess."

She wasn't attacking him any more, but she did find the strength to push herself back up enough to sit on her knees again. "Why do you think I made all this effort then?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I think you're afraid."

Her look was as tired and annoyed as ever. "Afraid of what?"

"You have this idea that everyone has to be perfect - free of sin. So if someone who isn't perfect was to go after Temptress and seal the fountain, and succeed, it would mean that whole idea about how everyone has to be devout and free of sin to accomplish anything would be wrong. You're afraid because if that idea is wrong, you think it means your faith and religious devotion - it was all for nothing."

"And I'm guessing you're going to rationalize how that doesn't follow."

He leaned back and supported himself by his arms, staring up at the Sun and Moon, still right where they were when this whole fight began. "What if both is true?"

"How?"

"What if all this stuff, religious devotion, self-discipline, not overindulging, that all makes succeeding easier, but it's still possible to succeed without it? Even more if you do have some of it." He got back up and offered her a hand to help her up. "Here's an idea. You come with us and we test out whether I'm right - together."

Still wincing whenever she made a wrong move, holding the strange branding with one hand, the nun followed him as he walked back to the others. "Do I even have a choice?"

"Yes."

She stopped for a moment, stared at him with narrowed eyes, and then turned towards the giant plane waiting for its new passengers and crew. She still wasn't sure whether he was actually intending to give her a choice, but after being given several opportunities to, he wasn't threatening her or doing anything else she expected. "Whatever, let's go. I'll take down the ward."

They stood by watching her approach the little wooden cross on the other side of the invisible wall and - still under pain whenever she tried using magic, casting something onto it. With this mark on her shoulder, she couldn't use magic without immediate twinges of pain, but she appeared to be able to pull off enough of it to cast something onto the idol.

And upon testing, it appeared it worked. The invisible wall was gone. With everyone back together and glad the danger was over, Dasher patted Kris on the shoulder. "How come you know so much about the bible?"

"She mostly picked the more popular parts. But generally, if you grow up in a family like mine, you have to know those things."


	26. Song of Storms

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 14

Song of Storms

* * *

The Chariot was no longer out of their reach. The ward was gone, they could approach it without problems. "You know, the real spruce goose doesn't have wheels." Noelle reassured herself that she could touch the wheel of the giant plane and that there wasn't an additional invisible wall behind the invisible wall.

"This one didn't have any at first either. We made a lot of improvements to it since it was created. It's faster - the engines are much more powerful. It maneuvers much better. It's more stable, more secure - it could barely glide over the water when we first got it. By now I can take off into the air proper. Brought it up to speed in so many ways. Cameras. We have cameras now, and a lot of the fine tuning is automated."

The time had come for Starlet, the Journeyman's well-aged wife, to do what she was here for. Standing at the side of the presumably wooden colossus, she spun a circle in the air with her hand. Where she did, a glowing wheel appeared in the air. Shining in red, blue and green and spinning in place for a few moments before speeding up to the plane's hull.

There was a circular socket next to one of the doors to it a side, that the wheel slid and fit into. They could all hear the clicking of mechanisms falling into place. And then, a wide door opened up and a staircase extended itself down with railings for them to comfortably walk up the stairs and inside. Kris waited for Noelle and didn't walk inside until she did. When they did enter, her jaw dropped. "What is - this is - this is all different!"

"Hm?" Dasher had already proceeded upstairs with most of the others and peeked out over the railing of the circular staircase.

"The plane this is modeled after - I was at the museum it's at. This all looks different from what I remember." She expected an insecure shell with crude supports, open pipes and tanks in the middle of rooms, all made of cheap metal, if any metal at all. She thought they were going to walk into plain, thin metal grids and one uncomfortable room after the other, but Dasher wasn't kidding when he said they had made some improvements.

All the parts she expected to be nigh-painful to touch if you did so with too much force, were widened and softened up with something, and then painted over with gypsum, to make all the surfaces smooth, even when sliding your hands along them. And it had gone through a paint job to give it all some brighter, and more inviting colours, too.

On her way upstairs, she noticed a lot of the equipment usually strewn around to make way for a large crew to operate, was rearranged or outright missing. Dasher led them all the way to the top and the front. To where the cockpit was, with a few rows of seats for them.

The archer went forward to the cockpit. The interior was redesigned in multiple ways. The cockpit itself was more open to the rest of the room, but in the same vein, the panels had been extended to reach further into it. Simplifying and relegating tasks to Dasher alone that in the original, must have taken over a dozen crew members to perform.

And that wasn't even including maintenance, just reading the displays and making adjustments. Smiling proudly from his chair, the archer cracked his fingers. "Why don't you all relax while the magician works his magic? Please take your seats and make sure your safety belts are sitting tight."

Starlet appeared to have a set seat in mind. Headbanger picked a front row seat near the cockpit and put her and Dasher's weapons and instruments down on the seats right behind her. Ralsei and Noelle paid attention to what Kris was doing, but he showed little signs of planning to sit down. He was keeping an eye on Faith.

The succubus that had just spent a long time trying to kill them all again and again. Injured, with a painful mark branded onto her shoulder, and barely any garments left after her once neat and modest robe was torn and cut down to less and less in the course of three fights. Making some efforts to get on her good side, was probably a good idea, so he asked for a towel or a blanket and offered it to her so she could cover herself up. She declined at first. "Keep your alms!"

She took one of the seats on the right side. Then after a few seconds, she realized he wasn't going anywhere. He was just standing there with that blanket in his hand. More annoyed at that than the gesture, she grumbled and then took it out of his hands.

Somewhat in reaction to seeing that, Noelle came close enough for him to pick up that she wanted his attention. She smiled at him. "Come on, we're taking off soon." They could already hear the engines.

She wanted him to take a seat. And he shook his head. "I'm not sitting down. That was a bad idea last time."

"Why?"

"Brawlers jumped out with the pilots and I wasn't fast enough to stop them. I'm not letting that happen again."

She rolled her eyes. "There are no brawlers here. We're among friends." He pulled his mouth to the side to make a face at her. A face that she'd come to know as his 'I heavily disapprove' face. "Come on, he's waiting and you look exhausted." Dasher indeed wasn't facing the controls and had his custom chair turned away from them.

He hesitated for a while, but he gave in. He took a deep breath. "I'm not sitting at the window though." At least he wanted to be as close to an area where he could move quickly as possible. He sat down right behind Faith. An understandable choice, but it didn't do much to make her feel less like a prisoner rather than a member of the group.

She sat down next to him, together with Ralsei. She was hoping for the Prince to help her calm him down, but he was as much on edge as Kris was. This was the one part of the journey which she hoped to be able to relax in, and here they were, constantly expecting something bad to happen.

But the constant excitement had worn down on Kris more than it had on her. She could tell. The plane began moving, drove further into the valley, and then made a u-turn to move towards the cliff with some distance to gain momentum. And briefly, the nervousness spread to everyone when the moment came to lift off. But when it did, it all worked like a charm.

Even though he was right in front of them with no wall or door separating them, the pilot used a microphone to talk to everyone through a loudspeaker. "We have just taken off, right into a clear sky that promises a smooth flight."

"See?" At first, this didn't do much to assuage their fears. Now that Noelle thought of it, he did look exhausted, but she couldn't remember a time ever since they first fell into the dark world, that he didn't look like that. And yet after all this time, he was still perfectly up and awake. As was she. And there was this strange disconnect. He did have dark rings under his eyes, but aside from that, he was completely awake.

Well, she couldn't let his paranoia rain on her parade. She leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes. They both got some rest and some shut-eye for who knew how long. They were both woken up when a rumble shook the whole plane and startled them.

Of course, Ralsei immediately loudly asked: "What was that?"

Dasher didn't look back. Instead, he took a microphone attached to the console and used it to answer through the loudspeaker. "I'm not sure. But remember when I said we were heading into a 'clear sky'?"

Kris raised onebrow. "Yes?"

"Well it got a little cloudy...and stormy...in a matter of seconds." Those alarmed by this went straight for the window to look outside. He wasn't lying. They were surrounded by dark clouds. And in the distance, Ralsei spotted a flash of lightning. "I would like to point out that this isn't normal. A storm like this usually takes an hour to form, not a minute."

As if on cue, Kris got up and went to the front. "So it's not a normal storm."

"Wait! What was that?" Banger was as worked up as Kris and Ralsei and frantically poked the window with one of her claws. "I swear I saw something move out there."

"We are."

"No, I mean something else. Look! There it is again!" They couldn't directly see anything. But a few strikes of lightning lighting up at the same time revealed some large form fly a thin serpentine through the clouds alongside the Chariot. This time, Kris was looking from right behind the cockpit and could make it out, too. Whatever it was, it had wings, that much he could discern.

Then, they got to a point where no clouds were covering it up anymore. Starlet gasped and shrieked: "Succubus!" Then she paused. "Wait..that's not a succubus."

It was a dragon. But she looked nothing like Susie. She wasn't anywhere near as big as the Chariot, but she still dwarfed any dragon monsters Kris and Noelle could think of. She had a very long neck, and a tail that matched it. She was keeping herself at the same speed as the plane, with a pair of wings that spanned her own width several times over.

She had a lengthy, pointy snout that with a hard end at the front, like a beak. She came with parts of a normal monster - or human - would cover up, and she had nothing to cover it. She was flying through as undressed as she was made. Kris recognized her. He did because he was the one who drew her at Asriel's request. As far as he knew, she was supposed to be under Asriel's bed, somewhere between the music sheets. And her name was: "Tempest! It's an elder dragon called Tempest."

"You know it?"

"It's a she. And she shouldn't be here." Now she sped ahead of the plane, turned around and raised her hand. She roared at them and in her palm, a tiny tornado formed, and with a swing of her arm, she threw it to the chariot. When it raged over the top of the hull, scratching all along the way, they could feel the plane rocking from everywhere.

"She's not going to just stop, we need to do something about her." With a more aggravated voice, he tipped at Dasher from behind and practically snapped at him. "Hey. Berdly. We might need someone with a bow."

Dasher shrugged without turning around. "Who's Berdly?"

"Nevermind, are you coming or what?"

"Who's going to fly the plane?"

"You said you improved it. Isn't there some kind of autopilot?"

"No."

He didn't know how much time they had to do something about it. And he pointed at Noelle, Ralsei and Headbanger. "You, you and you. Come with me. Now!"

The storm had gotten so strong, they could actually feel the plane gliding through it. They could feel the irregular pressures of the outside winds. And every flash of lightning they saw was panic-inducing in its own minor way as well. Kris made sure they were all getting up and then ran back to the staircase. Noelle did do as she was told, but she still asked: "Wait! Where are we going?"

There had to be some door or hatch on the left, something more open than a window. And there was. Not as comfortable an area as the one they came through, but at least there was a door. And several pipes and railings to hold onto. The mechanisms that kept it shut were pretty intuitive. Kris and rock-star-Susie immediately understood how to undo them. "Grab hold of something! Everyone." He didn't open the large door until they did.

This door being bigger than that in the building block plane made it only even more vertigo-inducing. And the air currents raging through only made it worse. Once he caught himself, he took a few steps back and grabbed a microphone from on the wall. It looked like the one Dasher had used before. "Hello?" There was a button. He figured he needed to press it first. "Hello?" This was when he heard Dasher respond in kind. "Do you have something to talk to her with? Like megaphones?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Everyone heard the numbing thumps you heard when you listened to a recording of a microphone being turned on. But they heard it at an ear-shattering volume, followed by Dasher's voice. "Hello dragon! We come in peace!"

"Her name is Tempest."

"Hello, Tempest! We come in peace. We mean you no harm." The dragon roared at the plane, loudly enough for them to hear it from all the way over here. Then she raised her hand to summon another one of those tiny tornadoes, launched it to the plane, and when it was outside of any angle Kris and the others could see, the entire plane shook enough to make everyone stumble.

And it took a few moments for it to stabilize its course again as much as was possible. And they could definitely hear something break. It took a few moments, but then the thumping sounds repeated themselves in reverse and Dasher talked through the interior loudspeakers again. "She took out one of those loudspeakers. She can hear us, but I don't think she's listening."

Speaking of megaphones, they heard another familiar voice scream through one as well. "You crazy bitch! You're supposed to scare them a little, not kill them." It was Susie's voice. Passing by the plane from above, another dragon came flying behind Tempest. A red serpent with wings. With saddles and several succubi - Mistresses specifically - sitting on its back.

With Dark World Susie - or rather Axe, sitting in the front with a megaphone. When it was clear that this scolding had made Tempest calm down for a few moments, the grinning succubus turned to the Chariot. "Hey, lightners! Lookie what we found ourselves on the way!"

Her talking so much with as powerful an amplification as this, drew the ire of the green dragon. She used both hands, and the storm this created as much bigger than the ones she had thrown at the plane. Luckily for them, she launched it towards the red serpent instead of them. "Hey! Watch it!" It generally didn't seem to Kris like the succubi had Tempest under control.

The serpent was able to dodge that bigger storm, but at this point, it was only a matter of time before she threw one just like it at the Chariot. Kris had to come up with something. Talking to her didn't work. Neither if Dasher did, nor if Axe did. Getting creative with ACTing in a situation like this wasn't much of an option. They were having enough trouble holding a steady course with the plane. What were they going to do?

Fly some fancy maneuvers and 'dance' with the dragon? So instead, what he decided was to summon his sword. The first thing he tried, he more or less expected not to work. And it didn't. He tried throwing it out of the plane to see how far it would go, and of course it didn't even come close to her.

Kris always knew that the weird stuff, all the strange dragon girls Asriel wanted drawn would come back to bite them. But not this literally. Back then, he didn't expect them to actually show up in person to attack him. Asriel - if he was here now, he would know what to do. He used to play so many fantasy games in-between juggling all these other things he did. "Wait, that's it. Asriel's games. The fierce deity mask!"

"What?" Now he just had everyone confused, thinking out loud like that.

He turned to the prince. "Can you enchant my sword to make it shoot an energy wave whenever I swing it? Kind of like Susie's Rude Buster."

That only had Ralsei fidgeting round nervously. "Every time you - I don't think I'm powerful enough for that yet. Am I?"

"Yet? What do you..." Kris' eyes narrowed. "Is this like in those old anime about humans and monsters working together?"

"What?"

"Does your magic get stronger with the bonds of our friendship?"

It had Ralsei dumbfounded for a moment. He looked past him as if expecting to find the answer behind him. "What? - Uh - I mean yes! Yes, exactly. The closer we grow to each other, the more powerful I get!" He grabbed Kris' hand and blushed. "I can feel my power growing even now."

"Perfect." He resummoned his sword, and after Ralsei held his hand over it, trails of light ran onto the sword and it began glowing in bright white. Then the white glow grew in intensity, so much so both he and Ralsei took a step back while he held it further away. It was unexpectedly strong. It was bright and powerful enough that Kris could feel the heat it emitted with his armored hand.

"Let's see if this works." He adjusted himself until he was sure he stood secure enough to withstand the wind and swung it into the air outside. An unstoppable white crescent glided off his sword and cut its way through the winds outside. "Yes." He picked up the speaker and pressed the button again. "Could you bring us closer to her?"

"What? Are you crazy?"

"We came up with something, but it won't work if I keep missing." A slight course correction followed but it was very slow and Tempest eventually adjusted her course to fly a little further away again. While it happened, Kris took the time to shoot more of those energy waves to get a better idea of how the aim with this worked.

When they were about to get in range for him to give this a try, he gestured for Ralsei to renew the enchantment. With a solid stance and a firm grip on his sword, he gave it a try. He swung it, and like before, in the curve of the swing, a crescent of white light loosened itself off the blade and shot roughly in Tempest's direction. It would have been impressive. If he hadn't missed by a long shot.

But the enchantment lasted, so he tried tossing a whole volley the dragon's way. Only one lightly scratched its leg, nothing anywhere close to what he wanted to do. After giving it another shot and missing every time, he shrugged. "Well this isn't going to work." He pressed the button to talk to Dasher.

"You'll have to help."

"I told you I can't!"

"Berdly..."

"Stop calling me Berdly, what do you want from me?"

A bow took training, strength and precision to operate. But a firearm, not so much. "Do you have any guns here?" Now was the time when he would have welcomed some modern firepower. Wait a second, they did have a gun. "Ralsei! Can you try shooting it?"

The prince didn't look so sure about this, but he didn't object. He got out his pistol, released it and pointed at the dragon. He fired an entire magazine at Tempest. He missed with all of them. He turned back to Kris and shouted against what of the storm blew in here: "It's too much wind, it's maladjusting the bullets and I can't correct for it."

Well that was just wonderful. Bullets wouldn't work because the winds were strong enough to just pull them to the side. Kris was desperate enough to gesture for Ralsei to enchant his sword so he could give it a try again. He swung and swung and swung around in the air. He didn't hit her a single time, and he didn't expect to. But he noticed something.

He could have sworn that while his aim was off, the waves were all moving in a straight line from where he launched them. He grabbed onto a cylindrical bar on the inside of the hatch and pulled it shut so at least the storm wasn't raging against them. "Is the wind thing happening to those energy waves, too?"

"What, no. Of course not. They work kind of like light does."

Kris pointed at the gun. "Then can't you just enchant this to shoot kind-of-like-light bullets?"

Ralsei was dumbstruck by that suggestion, and stared at his now empty gun. "...I guess that is possible."

"That way you have bullets that you can aim properly AND don't get turned by the wind."

Dasher's voice rung from the loudspeaker. "Guys, I think we lost her." That didn't last for more than mere seconds. "Spoke too soon, she's on the right side now."

While the prince got to enchanting his weapon, Kris and Banger ran to the other side and undid the locks there. "Hold on!" Then he undid the last mechanism keeping the door shut and pushed it open. They were more prepared for the storm this time. And the prince came closer to the door, now with the lines between the different components his pistol were made of, glowing with a blinding white light.

He shouted into Kris' ear: "I'm still not sure how this helps. The one time I hit her barely did anything."

He just lifted up one of those floppy ears of Ralsei's and did the same: "Go for the wings! They're stretched thin and she needs them to fly!" All Ralsei could do now, was swallow his fears, look out and watch the green dragon catch up with the plane to soon speed ahead again.

He braced himself and held his weapon's grip with both hands, did the best he could to aim a little ahead of her wings, and fired again and again. In spite of him not using real bullets, it still had recoil. But unlike with real bullets, all he had to do to reload, was place one hand on top of the gun, and after a glow of light coming from that hand, the enchantment was refreshed. "Keep going!"

At an increasing pace, be began shooting salve after salve at the dragon. only a few shots actually hit her, but whenever they did, they could tell from how she was staggered and would fall behind, before roaring at the plane and catching up again. "Oh no..." It used to try to get ahead a little before shooting her attacks their way. Now she was forming one already from here. She no longer cared about form, if she ever did. "Shoot, shoot, shoot!"

He began shooting and refreshing his enchantment faster and faster. The more he did it, the more he figured out how he had to aim to actually hit his target under these conditions. As the holes in Tempest's wings finally became plentiful and large enough for Kris and the others to see them from where they were. Eventually, the dragon slowed down a lot.

She tried fighting through the pain and surged quite a bit further forwards, but then her wings lost their strength and reduced themselves to frail, aimless flapping as the dragon rapidly dropped down and eventually vanished beneath the storm clouds she had conjured.

Silently, they all stood at the door. Waiting. In case it wasn't over. It took a full minute. But when it passed, the clouds began to move away and disperse. When at last, in some places the black silhouettes of clouds made way for just the complete blackness of the night sky, it was time to cheer. Banger winked at the more timid members of their group. "Oh yeah!"

The prince hopped up and down at least once. "Kris! We did it! You're safe - I mean we're safe. For now."

Kris sighed and helped the dragon pull the door shut. He was glad things went this way. Sure, it was dangerous, but at least they made it through this.

* * *

From far below - in position to catch the heroes if any of them fell out of the plane, and out of the heroes' line of sight from any door or window, two purple dragons and one dark pink one watched the entire thing transpire. "Gee." Axe mused. "Looks like they handled this one on their own just fine. And for a while there I was worried."

She shook the ropes tied to a self-made bridle wrapped around the flying red snake's maw, and tugged at it to guide the dragon carrying them further up above. "Let's join the others, we still got work to do." Far above the plane flew a second, identical red serpent, carrying a whole line of Grunts and Berserkers. All ready with their broadswords.

One of the larger purple dragons tipped on her shoulder and almost hit one of the spikes on her upper armband. "Work? Aren't we done here? Temptress said to regroup if the elder dragon doesn't stop them."

Axe faced back up to where their ride was flying. "Nope. I'm working on the Knight's orders, not hers. I came here to do one thing. And no-one's leaving until we did it and I've got what I'm here for."

"Did what?"

She grinned at the older dragonesses. "We're gonna catch ourselves a dragonslayer!" Once in position, flying right along side the other serpent, she called to the other succubi: "All right, girls. It's show time. Here's the deal. The front roof, the human's most likely right underneath it. And as long as they're mid-flight, if we land on it, they can't do jack about us. But I need him unharmed, so here's how we'll make that happen..."

* * *

Unlike with everything else they faced, getting past tempest put everyone in a celebratory mood. Even Kris was smiling. Starlet opened a fridge on the right side of the room, took out a wine bottle and fetched glasses for everyone. "Please, no modesty. You earned this." She handed filled glasses to everyone. Noelle gave Kris an insistent look when he was about to decline.

Well he could have a little. He took a sip. Then when it felt safe, he drank up the rest of his glass. And regretted it. He could taste the alcohol. It wasn't as mild as what they had at church, and there was no sweetness to smoothen out the bitter taste.

Seeing him actually drink this stuff earned him a painful punch to the right shoulder from a much more high-spirited dragon. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" She leaned on his shoulder and pointed her claw right at his face. "Didn't think you'd go for it you stuck up little wimp!"

Faith sat still in her seat. Wrapped in her blanket. Just like when the dragon attacked. But even she accepted a glass when Noelle offered it to her. "Heyyyy!" With an entire bottle in her other hand, Headbanger half-stumbled forwards to where Dasher sat. "Brave lil' pilot, you carried us through the storm. Why don't you have some, too."

He didn't turn around, but when she hung over the controls, instead of the glass as she assumed, he took the open bottle out of her hand and drank right from that one, instead. "Awww yeah, thought you were up for some partying up in here."

Kris was silent. As he liked to be. He stared at his empty glass for a while, before Ralsei called for him. By the time he zoned back in, he and Noelle were waving for him to sit between them, so he did. "See? Sure, it was a little bumpy, but we're going to make it. Now we can relax."

Right when she said this, a loud thud preceded a sudden shake in the plane. As if they were pressed down. Or something very heavy landed on it. "What was that?" It eased up, but not before one thud after the other came sounding from above. It became a lot of more messy rumbling. Starlet's eyes widened. "Steps! Someone's on top of us!"

The steps then stopped moving about and instead gained strength. All around them, something was being hammered into the hull. The tiny pointy ends of what could only be some hook to fasten their attackers onto the plane. Then with a loud bang, A Susie lookalike crashed against the left window after swinging down from above. She seemed to be held by the ankles, and upon staring Kris right in the eyes, shouted something and gave a thumbs up.

With a bang, a dent was struck into the top of the plane. And it was immediately followed by another, identical looking dent appearing next to it. At first, he chalked up the pointy shape to just coming from how metal bent. But when the third one had that same, slightly curved, pointy shape, he started to realize it wasn't a coincidence. He got up and went forwards, closer to where they were.

They stopped when he was about to reach them. Instead, some faint noise started behind him. Further in the back, right above or in front of the staircase. Whatever they were doing there, it wasn't good. He ducked under the dents, which still didn't resume when he did and asked the archer: "They're on the roof! Can you shake them off?"

"How?"

"Maneuvers? Something like a barrel roll?"

Dasher slammed his palm onto his face so strongly, he slapped it loud enough to be heard. "This is a transportation plane, not a fighter jet! If I tilt it too far in any direction, it will just crash into the sea."

He always sort of had the impression that Dasher 'was' Berdly in some way, but now he was outright reminding him of him. "You know, that sounds like something Berdly would say, too."

"Stop calling me Berdly!"

The attacks that dented the ceiling resumed. And when Ralsei and Noelle tried getting closer to the noise in the back, they were shocked and backed off. "Why is it so hot there?" Worse yet, a spark drifted off the ceiling where the heat built up and it caught fire.

When one of the attacks on the ceiling hit a previously made dent, a little piece of it broke off and fell inside. Kris moved backwards and addressed the archer again. "How are they getting through this? Isn't this made of reinforced steel or something?"

"No. There's an isolating coating around it, but the thing itself is mostly made of wood. That's why we have fire extinguishers everywhere. There aren't even any upward hatches. As long as we're in flight, we're sitting ducks."

Upon hearing this, Kris immediately grabbed the first one he could find around the corner from the control panels and ducked under the spot where something sharp was chopping its way through the roof. Again, the moment he passed by that spot, it stopped for a moment until he had gone past it. Faith had made her way to the back as well.

"Foolish lightners! That means this whole carriage is flammable, when all your enemies are dragons." The other succubus had rushed to join Dasher and Kris in the front. With her axe and his bow ready. It became very clear that the heat was concentrated in a specific area.

Kris needed a moment to figure out how to use the extinguisher, but come to think of it, it was pretty intuitive. He pressed down on the grip and covered the burning roof in foam. It put out the fires for a moment, but it didn't cool down the roof. And behind him, the first pieces of the ceiling were carved out and falling into the floor. When they did, he saw the curved blade of the weapon chopping open a hole. It was definitely the devilsknife.

Susie's weapon since after they beat Jevil. And because of it, it was Axe's weapon, too. The sight of the very thin hull actually breaking open sparked a shrieking frenzy in Noelle. Ralsei could somewhat calm her down by pulling out his gun and standing in front of her, but that didn't help much either because that way, he didn't stand between her and the searing heat in the back.

When enough bigger pieces had fallen off the floor, Axe's dark pink face peeked inside through the hole in the ceiling, showing her yellow teeth with a wide grin. With a melodious glee in her voice, the only actually convincing succubus announced herself: "Here's Susie!" Which made Noelle shriek in her corner all over again. Well at least she wasn't just frozen any more.

Worse yet, from the other side, something with a lot of force bent one corner of the roof over the foamed up part of the room and made a dent much wider than Axe's scythe on the other side. And even she wasn't showing any sign of stopping. "You're not getting away this time!"

The third kick to the roof in the other corner, burst through wood and taxed metal and revealed itself to come from the very voluminous leg of a Mistress. The enormous dominatrix had dressed for the occasion and was now completely covered head-to-toe in black leather. She actually had to duck for her head with all that hair to fit inside.

Ralsei raised his gun to point and shoot, but he was only a step away from her when she entered and she could easily summon a leash and pull down his pistol by the barrel. And Kris had his hands tied together as swiftly as Ralsei's gun was pulled down. Noelle tried raising her staff, but apparently wood alone wasn't enough to summon vines. She needed to be on solid ground.

The moment there was any space between the plump dragon and the hole they had burnt, more Susies came jumping inside. All with a leash on their right arms, leading outside. Faith did nothing but stay on her seat, but Headbanger picked up her Axe. "That's it, fighting it is! Hope you girls are ready! Here goes nothing!" And here went nothing indeed.

She charged for one of the incoming Grunts, but she didn't even make it all the way to her. The exact same way as it did with Kris, a leather leash shot from the ground, wound itself over her axe and tied itself around her wrists, pulling them to the floor.

"Really now? Really?" More bits and pieces fell off the roof right over her. Axe had carved open enough of an opening to drop inside as well, landing right on top of Headbanger's back and causing her to collapse completely under her weight. She knocked some dust off her black coat and with one boot still on the other dragon's back, she kneeled down.

"You, fighting?" She laughed. Any grunts present laughed with her. Laughter filled the whole room while the Grunts further behind punched Ralsei and Noelle several times, keeping them pinned to the wall in their corner. "Dude you are so not cut out for that. Gimme that. You really don't deserve it." Through all of this, Headbanger's star-shaped sunglasses were still intact, but now, the new leader of the succubi took it from her and put it on herself.

By the time this happened, Grunts and Berserkers had long swarmed every corner, keeping tabs on everyone - Starlet, Kris Ralsei and Noelle, Faith, Dasher, everyone had one, two or three of them on them. Kris had let too much time pass, but he just couldn't get this right. He had an idea how to free himself, but it was too little, too late.

He was trying to break out of the Mistress' magic attack by summoning his shield and using its growth to snap the leash, but his shield kept slipping out of it before it got that far. In part it was perhaps the Grunt who saw what he was doing and kept purposefully sliding his hand forwards or backwards to keep the shield from tearing open is leash.

When gunshots coming from Starlet's side of the room drew everyone's attention, Kris took the opportunity to try it one more time. It worked. He summoned his sword and raised it to attack the distracted Grunt. But the only person not so easily distracted, was Axe, who somehow caught wind of what he was doing, planted her right foot on the side of Headbanger's head, and launched herself forward to parry his sword strike with her scythe.

Within a second of wrestling back and forth, she was able to force him to lower his blade a bit, and at that point, she could just leverage her strength into pushing him backwards, to the side opposite from the prince and his classmate.

As soon as the injured Grunts in the front had control of the situation again, the Mistress could dedicate more of her magic towards making slings and bands shoot from the seats and the floor. Wrapping his forearms together tightly and leaving no room for him to wiggle his way into a position he needed for his shield trick to work.

Axe and more succubi swarmed him. They held him down while their boss pulled out a bundle of rope. And raised her head with a wide smile, wide enough for him to see all her sharp teeth. All the other succubi could never fool him. He had seen what Susie looked like in the dark world, so they with their purple scales, torn clothes and impersonal way of interacting with people, something about them never really screamed 'Susie' to him.

"Well well, congratulations. You got yourself caught. You know what's coming next, right?" But with her on the other hand - seeing someone who looked the part, stare him down, pull those lips back to put her jaws on display the same way the real Susie occasionally did. It felt like the real one was talking to him. That was pretty intimidating. Intimidating enough for him to keep quiet long enough to make her angry. "I asked you a question!"

He was out of plays. That was, plays other than going back to bribery. "I give you the rest of my sandwiches and we forget all this?"

She burst out laughing and went on to wind the rope around his arms to pull them together, and made sure it was as tight as possible. "Nope. Now's not the time for sandwiches. That comes later. Now come on, move, 'dragonslayer'." All the way from pulling him back on his feet to leading him past the hot spot and down the stairs, she couldn't keep it together and giggled the whole way through.

He didn't like her using that title in the first place, but he hated her doing it in such a smug way as if he had had any part in coming up with it. It was all the Journeyman's fault.

"Wait!" He stopped. "What about the others?"

"Well..." She did this same thing as Headbanger, where she leaned on his shoulder, but she put a lot more weight onto him. "...I'm not Tempts. She's the one with all the stupid ideas. I got clear orders. Keep the human alive and the lightners away from the fountain. You guys need a human to seal the fountain, so as long as I keep you away from it, job's done."

"N-no!" Ralsei refused to hold still, even when held in place by multiple dragons. "At least take me with him! Please!"

"Nope. Sounds like a big mistake." The more it became clear that she was taking only Kris with her, the more erratic he got. "Kris! Don't go!"

One of the Grunts asked another one what was going on with him. No-one knew the answer. "No! You can't go! I have to come with you!" He tried struggling free to get to Kris. The more effort the succubi put into restraining him, the harder he tried. "Let me...let me!" He tried to wring his arms out of their grip. He tried again and again.

"Jeez, what is wrong with you?"

He only stopped, when Kris stared him in the eyes. Kris was calm and collected. As he often was. Regardless of how hopeless their situation looked for now, all he had to think to himself was: No touching the lights.

All he had to do, was to not touch the lights and once he had more knowledge of what waited for them on Asriel's bed, he could always go back. Who knew, maybe he would be lucky. If he safely reunited with Noelle and Ralsei, he could resume doing so. For the time being, he gave the prince a confident smile, and told him: "Trust me. Everything is going to be okay. I will find some way."

"Come on now." With a painful push to the back, Axe forced him to start walking down the stairs again.

All the way down the stairs, he could hear Ralsei scream. "No! Take me with you! You can't go! I can't just leave you! I have to - No!"

Even downstairs, it never stopped. He had to just hope he'd be okay. "Hey Boss!" One Grunt came rushing down the stairs to talk to Axe. "What about the others?"

Axe shrugged. "Who cares? I got what I came for. Just make sure you girls get out of there." Kris had to hope for the best. He could always just go back. He had to repeat this in his mind. He could always just go back. Axe undid the mechanisms holding the door shut, wrapped her arm around Kris, stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave off a loud whistle.

The winged serpent that had carried her and the Mistresses before, rammed the plane. Rocking the entire thing. It was in position for her to climb onto its back. With a bridle attached to its mouth and reins and various ropes tied to it and in reach of the front person riding it.

Still with her arm around Kris, she tightened her grip and lifted him off the floor to climb on. She let one leg hang down each side of the saddle and placed Kris down right in front of her, making him do the same. While she pulled the reins and made herself comfortable, with her head straight over his, both arms stretched past his left and right side to hold the reins.

She lowered her face to shout against the air currents and into his ear with a menacing tone he didn't hear the real Susie use unless she was really, really angry over some joke or prank: "You try to pull anything, and we're both jumping right down there. Got it?" He said nothing, and he didn't move either. "Gonna take that as a yes."

She whipped the larger serpent with its reins and it pushed itself off of the plane and sped further down, making the air blowing against Kris' face even more unbearable. He was surprised it didn't just blow them both off the lizard's back, when it sped all along a different route than the one they had set out to take.


	27. Chorus

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 14

Chorus

* * *

The previous day ended just fine. She went to the streets to get her fix on causing some mischief, and then went home to try some of the inedible and cold food her mother left behind. She listened to her obese mother's suspicious ramblings. To be exact, she started by asking her what she's been doing. "Hanging out with friends." She just answered before forcing herself to eat the next bit of undercooked sausage.

They were back to back, one watching tv, the other at the table. Neither turned around to face each other. But Susie could hear the rippling shuffles of dragon fat against the cheap leather of her seat. "That 'friends' story was funny the first time, but it's already getting old." That actually stung, coming from her own mother. Mostly because she didn't have a comeback.

It wasn't like Susie could blame her for thinking that way. "Let's not kid ourselves. I know you're not up to any good after your classes. I'm not sure if you even go to them half the time." All the little and big distractions with Kris, Noelle and even Berdly were a welcome change. But in the end, she had years of screw-ups, bad school grades, clashes with school staff and a risky evasion of the law to look back at.

She took that little lash in stride though. She didn't want to risk starting a fight and talking back when her mother started off like this always led to one. Better to just be quiet and walk out of the living room unscathed this time.

And in the end, she went to bed. The day ended like any other in Susie's life.

The following day started out in an unimaginably bizarre way. And it only got worse from where it started. She already felt weird when getting up. Police cars were parked all along the streets on her way to school. She entered the classroom only two or three minutes before the first class was set to start. Kris' and Noelle's desks were both empty. Their teacher wasn't here and a weird mood hung over everyone.

No-one said anything, not even Snowdrake and Jocks seemed as lively as otherwise. Berdly was completely frozen. Probably in hopes that Susie would not do exactly what she decided to do and poke him with the claw at the end of her index finger. "Dude..."

And even when it was unavoidable, he remained very slow to turn around. "...yeah?"

"Where are - you know." She nodded to her left and a bit over her shoulder to imply that she's referring to Kris' desk.

"You don't know?"

"No?"

"Didn't you hear the sirens? It was all over town."

"No."

"They're gone."

"What do you mean they're gone?"

"Vanished, in the middle of the night. Kris' mom called the police and the national guard. Everyone in the neighbourhood was woken up. Apparently one moment they're having dinner, then they go upstairs and poof - gone."

Hearing this made Susie's eyebrows drop as low as Berdly's. "Do you think they're..." She slowly moved her hand forward to point at Berdly's Jevil-themed glasses.

"Three times in a row? How unlikely is that? I guess not much more unlikely than twice in a row. Don't you think that's a little far-fetched?"

"What else is there? You think they ran away together out of the blue?"

Berdly slammed his palm against the side of his face. "Of course not. But there's got to be something more grounded than - " He stopped himself before he said anything about 'dark realms' or something similarly fantastical. Instead, when he saw the door barge open for a just as shaken up teacher, he opted to abort their conversation. "Later, okay?"

Mrs. Alphys only had her usual bag with her, but she was out of breath and more sweaty than before. She must have been running or carrying things around. "Good morning...heh - sorry. Had to fetch something to distract the smaller ones. What with Toriel taking the day off and all that."

That wasn't seen as valid reason for the rest of them to take the day off, so they had to go through classes as if this was just your every day school day. For all she knew, Kris was off in the dark world, going on a magical adventure with Noelle. And without her. She was instead stuck out here. With all the bothersome classes.

She could always feel the others staring at her. Judging her. Expecting her to do something extreme and get herself kicked out for good. Something about all this disturbed Susie on a deep level she didn't really understand. She couldn't just sit here and listen to Mrs. Alphys ramble on about equations. But she had to.

At least she'd be able to talk about this during recess. When the bell rang, she made sure to grab Berdly and drag him to the trees on the northern edge of the school yard. "Right now, we're out of their hearing range, you can let go of me already." When she did, they both sat down next to the trees.

"So what are we gonna do?"

"We? There's nothing we can do right now."

"There's got to be something! If you're so smart, birdbrain, you'll come up with something!"

Berdly sighed. "Look, it's Kris, right. If something's up with him, I can only think of three people to ask. Noelle, his brother, Mrs. Dreemurr. Noelle's gone too, mind you. His brother's off in college and I don't have his number. And far as I heard when I found out about all this, Mrs. Dreemurr never actually left the house since it happened."

Susie got up right away. "Then let's go."

"Where?"

"To Kris' place. If they're in the dark world, there's got to be a portal."

"I don't think it works that way."

"Hm?"

"It's obvious those portals don't stay open for long. Think for a second. Don't you think Kris' mom would have noticed if there was a wide-open closet-door that led straight into a giant black void? Imagine her in that situation. What do you think she'd do? Go after him or stay at home and call the police?"

He had a point, so she came back and sat down next to him again. "Yeah...I guess that's right."

That didn't make just sitting there in class following lunch break any less of a torture. She didn't want to sit here. She didn't want to just hang around anywhere either. She wanted to get to the bottom of this. She knew this was some dark world thing. She could feel it. He wouldn't just run away with Noelle overnight.

She was supposed to believe the quiet freak who used to just stay in his little corner doing who knew what, suddenly went around making romantic escapes with girls in the middle of the night? Like hell. No. She refused to believe that. When finally, the school bell rung to the end of their last class for today, she unleashed so much tension springing up that it flipped her stool back. She waited outside for Berdly to come by and grabbed him with a force in her grip that was on its own enough to signal that she wasn't going to let go. "Wait, where are we going this time?"

"To Kris' place."

"He's not going to be there."

"Whatever, Mrs. D deserves to know. If talking to her gives me any sense that she'll believe it, we'll tell her."

"That's insane." No looks were exchanged on their path through the streets. And Susie was in no condition in which anyone was willing to get between her and whatever she was up to. She didn't let go of him until they both already stood with one foot on the doormat. She started with three gentle knocks and waited for an answer. There was none, so she continued with three a little more insistent knocks and asked: "Hello? Mrs. D? It's me, Susie!"

Nothing. She tried knocking with a whole fist. "Hello? Hello?" Before she knew, she was banging against the door with enough force to hear and feel the impact along the entire wall. "Mrs. D I know you're in there! Come on, say something! I might know where he is!" It didn't help.

No matter how loudly she screamed and banged against the door, there wasn't any reaction whatsoever. Susie had even asked at Catti's place if they ever saw her pass by. They were right where she would come through all morning and they didn't see her once, so she was here. She just refused to dignify Susie's call for attention with any kind of response.

The only reaction she got after spending a long time making noise that must have been heard all the way down the street next to an increasingly nervous bird monster, was one of the local police officers walking up the driveway. "Hey! What are you two doing?" She could tell by the jarring voice without looking, that it wasn't one of the recently arrived officers, but the fish lady that Susie had a lot of experience eluding. "Did you just say something about knowing where he is?"

Undyne coming this close made Susie very nervous just out of habit from the things she was usually doing when she was worried about her being anywhere nearby. Which didn't make her look any less suspicious. "I - I mean I don't know - I'd rather talk to Mrs. D in person."

"So you know, or you don't know?" Undyne immediately had a little notebook and a pen on hand and her voice was already all the way into interrogation mode. Susie was not improving her situation with anything she said.

Berdly rolled his eyes and stepped between the two of them. "She means we know a spot he likes to go to. Maybe you could look there."

Undyne was already suspicious from how Susie reacted, so you could tell from the look on her face that she had doubts about Berdly's statement as well. "Okay, sure. Where is it? Describe it."

He answered with no hesitation. "It's in the woods southwest of the graveyard. At a bench in the middle of the woods. It's the only one there, you can't miss it."

The police officer froze for a second, but then noted it down. "Okay. So what else was there?"

With a swinging gesture, the bird pointed to the door. "We would rather talk to Mrs. Dreemurr. If that isn't too much to ask."

Undyne shrugged and went past them to the door. "I mean we can try knocking one more time." Which she did. "But if there's no-one at home, there's no-one at home."

"Where would she go at a time like this?"

"Look I don't tell people what to do, I just tell people what NOT to do. If she's not breaking the law, it's none of my business. Now will you two screw off and stop making noise? People are already complaining."

Of course this going the way it did left Susie's shoulders hanging down, but they both agreed to walking away. Mrs. Dreemurr didn't respond to Undyne knocking either. The moment they were out of the fish monster's hearing range, the dragon poked Berdly with her elbow. "Nice dodge by the way."

"You're not going to let this go are you?"

"How are you so cool about all this? Don't you care about either of them?" She clearly didn't expect him to be so dismissive from how angry she got.

"I'm worried sick about Noelle, yes. But why do YOU care?" From one moment the the next, all expression left Susie's face. "You're not involved with any of us in any way. Oh wow, you and Kris were in the dark world once, so were we, but you're not seeing me lose any sleep over him."

He couldn't keep going like this though, as she cut him off with a painful punch to the gut. "Shut up. Let's say you're right and they're not in the dark world, where else would they go? You and Noelle hang out a lot, right? What kind of places do you guys go to?"

"I highly doubt they went to any of those."

"Stop stalling. We're going there now." He sighed, but he knew he didn't have a choice in the matter. One by one, they went to the places that Berdly and Noelle usually hung out at, when they weren't at his family's house. The first stop was a bench right by the river. Of course Kris and Noelle weren't here, it was in the middle of town. They weren't at the librarby either.

They walked through the northern, more forested part of the park. They took a long trip to the outer part of town closer to where Susie lived, and up the cliffs, where they had a clear view of the surrounding woods all the way to the beach and the city on the horizon.

A great place to enjoy the view, but not one that Kris and Noelle were at, not even in the nearby hiding places Berdly led her along. He kept his hands in his pockets and sighed. The growing distress showed on the trail of feathers he left behind. "I mean we could hit the threatre, but they've got cameras there and the police has already put out a search for them, so if they were in any place with cameras, they would have been found by now."

They stayed up here for a while, aimlessly wandering about. "Isn't there some other place you can think of?"

"It - no."

He hesitated for a second. That was what Susie took from the way he reacted. He marched right up to him and grabbed the bird by the collar. "Is there or is there not another place?" Berdly stared her in the eyes with a look of deep disdain and remained quiet for a while. "Speak up!"

"Yes. There's one more place." Even when he moved on his own, he did so slowly. He really didn't want to head to that last one. He made them walk all the way back to school, through the now empty schoolyard, into the woods, far into the woods along a barely visible path. Wherever they were going, you wouldn't know where to go to, unless you had been there yourself. At the end of their journey lay a clearing with a big tree in the middle. With a look of resignation and a tone that matched it, he announced their arrival: "This is it. There, you happy?"

It was wide enough that you could see the sun, even in the late afternoon. And the treetop was wide enough that you could rest in its shadow, even in the evening. But there were no chairs, no benches, no street, no solid ground anywhere. The most solid thing here were the tree's roots. Everything else was just earth. Grassy, mossy, earth, where you could expect bugs to be crawling all over it. Nothing as clean as what she expected. If you sat or lied down here, your clothes were going to get dirty. "You and Noelle hang out here?"

"Sometimes."

"I mean...you sit down here?" She grinned and patted the earth, already smearing her hand with some of it.

Berdly rolled his eyes. "We usually have a blanket to sit on."

"What, you mean like a picnic?"

"Yes. Like a picnic."

She leaned down until she lay on her back, with her hands under her head. "That's - that's kinda neat."

They spent several minutes in complete silence. The only things Susie could hear was the crackling of drying leaves under Berdly's feet as he wandered around and sighed from time to time. He was also the one to put an end to the silence when he came back to Susie and stood right next to her. "You're still not satisfied, are you?"

"Nope."

"So what's your plan then? Break into Kris' house to look for a portal that's likely not there? Try and fail to come up with some explanation when Mrs. Dreemurr shoos you out of the house or calls the cops?"

"Yeah. Guess that's a thing."

"Look. If they are in the dark world- look at it this way. You and Kris were in the dark world before. And you made it back. Me and Kris were, and we somehow made it out again. And Kris has some experience with it now. So just keep reminding yourself that wherever they are, Kris has the situation under control. And whatever their situation is, it's not that bad."

* * *

The heroes were stuck in a helpless situation. Kris was gone. And they were surrounded by purple dragons that crammed the room around the cockpit to the brim. Everyone was held in place for several minutes. Whatever they tried, the dragons wouldn't let go. "All right, that's enough of a head-start."

The Mistress climbed back outside and like a storm, the shorter dragons swarmed out of the plane. Pulled upwards by the leashes on their arms. They could hear larger drake roaring outside, and felt the downward push to the plane when it pushed itself off the Chariot.

They didn't leave for good though. Noelle and the others could observe the serpent through the window. It gained some distance at first, then circled back and prepared a targeted ray of searing fire straight along the front end of the Chariot's left wing. Causing a small explosion in two of the turbines on the right side.

Ralsei rushed downstairs and after Kris the moment he could, but he was too late. He and Axe were long gone. He tried pulling out his gun, enchanting it and shooting the serpent from here, but all that accomplished was that it flew higher to where he had no chance at hitting or even seeing it. And it didn't limit itself to one side either.

Before leaving, it gave the other side the same treatment. Something all around them felt strange after the first attack, but after the second one, it was obvious. The turbines were out. All of them. Maybe something inside them melted, maybe it was magic, but for whichever reason they didn't work or respond.

They could see the reptile carrying all the succubi vanish in the distance. They were on their own, but not in a good spot. Dasher pulled a lever and got up. "Our engines are down. The momentum is carrying us for the time being, but that won't last. Everyone come with me!" He led them back to the staircase.

When Headbanger turned around and noticed Faith not having stood up yet, she grabbed her by the back of her blanket and dragged her along. The archer opened a few lockers, filled with backpacks with vest-like harnesses and passed them around to everyone. "All right! This isn't a regular jet, I can't just land it using only the wings. Not from this high up. It's going to drop and crash. We have to jump off before that happens."

When he wanted to close the door to reduce the noise, he noticed that Ralsei was still standing at the open door, teary-eyed and with his gun lowered but still drawn. "Hey!" He tipped at him and the others came closer as well. "Are you paying attention?"

The prince was moving his mouth. When Dasher and Noelle came closer and leaned in to hear what he was saying, he appeared to just be muttering the words "I lost him...I can't...I have to look after him...I want to look after him..."

They didn't have time for this, so he shook him. "Hey! Wake up! You can't look after him if you're not alive."

Even though they couldn't tell how, they could somehow see him breaking his trance. After blinking a few times, he was back to normal. "You're right!" He took the chute Dasher had brought and began putting on the harness and tightening all parts of it.

"We have to jump off! Jump, try to spread to slow down the fall, count to three, pull this!" He pointed at the handle, and then continued making sure everyone had a parachute and that they were all secured to not fall off.

Starlet was the first to jump off. She was already familiar with how this worked.

Faith didn't seem to have much of a motivation to do anything, including surviving, so Dasher and Headbanger helped along with her until she was ready to jump.

With his mind set on surviving to get a chance to find Kris again, Ralsei didn't need much encouragement to jump.

Which only left Dasher and Noelle. Noelle was trying to pull herself together and go along with it, but standing near the door with her harness on, it felt as if the wind blowing from outside was sending swarms of snakes slithering through her body. "I - I can't do this...Please..."

"There's no time!" And he didn't know what else to do anyway. Luckily these harnesses were set up to account for cases where people were unconscious or children were present. There were additional straps and locks that allowed to attach one harness to another. He attached her harness to his own, pulled all the straps very tightly and made sure they were secured.

Then he grabbed his bow, and took that leap of faith, dragging Noelle with him. You could barely hear her scream against the rushing of the wind in his ears as the air itself bore its way through his skin. And he only had a few seconds, too.

His hand was in position when he was jumping already, and once he was sure the plane and the winds it pulled along had drawn away enough, he pulled the handle and deployed the parachute. The force with which he was pulled scared him of his and Noelle's vests coming loose, but in the end, they somehow made it through that process in one piece.

It wasn't long until their movements became more even and Noelle had spaced-out moments when she didn't continuously scream for a second. And the longer they glided down, the longer those moments lasted. Soon, the gradual movements and the safety of the older human's arm holding her in addition to the harness, made for enough security for her to calm down.

"We're...we're alive."

Dasher laughed, relieved that Noelle came out okay. He pointed in one direction, with his free hand angled downwards. "See that over there?" Whatever he was pointing at, it was too far away to make out clearly, but contrasting against the blue-turqoise-ish fields extending in all directions below, she could definitely make out something floating down. She surmised that the round-ish object she could see was a chute like this one. "That's gonna be either Ralsei, or one of the dragon girls."

It was still cold and windy on their way down, but to a degree at which they could enjoy the sight. And the calm. Besides the winds, it was quiet. In the dark filling the skies, she was alone with Dasher, pressed against the toned human front-to-front. Held both by the straps of the life-savers they wore, and wrapped in his strong arm.

Far, far in the distance, further away than anything else she could see, an impossible looking structure pierced through the darkness. A tower that reached far into the sky. Higher up than Noelle and everyone else had been throughout their flight, it broke through the clouds and left its upper end obscured. The part of it she could see, was an insane length relative to its width, designed on the outside with two spirals of blue and bright yellow wound around each other like the swirling stripes of a candy cane. Though they were arranged in a much less steep way.

Her attention shifted when she felt Dasher's chin brushing against her forehead when he turned around to switch the sides he scouted. It gave her the sense that she was in strong hands. Kris was right. Noelle felt much safer like this than at any given time on the plane. She appreciated it. It gave her hope that she was different from Temptress.

"Say...Dasher?" She avoided his eyes and stared off, at the endless fields and sparse townships.

"What's wrong?"

"That feeling you talked about. You and the de - you and the Sinwielder. The one that drove Temptress crazy..." In her insecurity, her mouth filled up with water, so she had to swallow that liquid fear back down. "...when exactly did it start?"

"I'm not sure. I think in a much more mild form it has always been there. But it became really noticeable in the last two months. And a few days a go, it got much worse. It's still there, but I won't just go insane if that's what you're worried about..."

"No, no. That's not it. I just. I'm still not quite sure how the dark world works." She began to notice glowing lights flying around above the ground, and lengthy fleets being carved into the landscape. "I just hope Kris is okay."

"Hey, he'll be fine. The dragons need him alive, remember?"

"Yes...yes you're right."

"We should focus on finding the others. Then we can look for Kris."

Their journey down didn't last forever. As their eyes followed the further-away of the two dragon girls, they began noticing that the ground near where they were landing wasn't entirely untouched. Here and there, at far-apart spots on the blue grass, large fissures were carved into the ground. And swarms of small yellow lights flew through the air not far away from where they were heading.

When the dragon they watched hit the ground and her parachute began slumping down over her, she and Dasher were close enough to make out a little more. From one of the bigger fissures, big enough to be more of a gorge, another light emerged and began flying around and joining the others. Their movements seemed too random, too independent from the dragon struggling to crawl out from under the drape. She suspected it to be something the nun casted at first, but it really didn't seem that way.

And soon came their time. They hit the ground. Yes, gliding down softened up the impact, but it was still heavy enough to drag them both down on all fours. All the more when the folded up chute collapsed over them and spread itself out. The way it wrapped itself on the ground forced them down as if it was a lot heavier than it seemed when carrying it.

Even when Dasher undid the safety locks holding the two of them together and then undoing both her and his harness, he was always in close enough proximity for her to feel him right next to her. Whenever she struggled a little more to push herself out from under the drape, the human crawled a little further and held up a little more of it so she could follow more easily.

Under wincing and grunting, they eventually made it out and letting the outer end drop on the ground, they could stand back up. While knocking some of the dust off her robe, Noelle noticed that oddly enough, while Dasher lost his hat in the heat of the fall, her own christmas hat was still on her head as if nothing had happened.

Not that the loss of the human's hat lasted long. When he noticed, he twirled his index finger around and from a red cloud, a new identical looking hat - or the exact same one - materialized in his hand. Allowing him to put it back, straighten it and walk away from the entire ordeal as if nothing had happened.

They swiftly got to following the direction in which they saw one of the dragons fall. But on their way there, the roaming swarm of lights made a sharp turn and flew right to them. They were children and infants, both monsters and humans, but all of them with wings on their back glowing with the same golden light as they did, and as Faith's delta rune did back when they fought her. Those that had one, gently strummed their hands along the strings of their harps, as most, maybe all of them came up to them with their mouths open, singing together as a harmonious, angelic choir.

"Cherubs?", burst out of Noelle. "In the dark world?"

Right then, gathered around the two of them, the angels stopped singing. One of them, a baby with a bow and arrow, floated out of the ring they had formed, down and closer to her. "We are those who bear the tunes that praise the lord. Our songs reach out for heaven." Those that did before, resumed their synchronous singing with one slow, calming tone. "Our words call out his name."

It was a tone that soothed Noelle and made her feel a sense of importance, chilling her spine in a more comforting way than the cold out here would have.

"What are you - I mean where did you come from? I thought I saw you fly out of one of those holes." She looked off to the only fissure she could see from here. It was over a hundred metres away. Everything seemed much further apart down here than when they were floating down from the sky. But even from down here, she could see a little of that strange spire tower over the continent.

"We dwelled in the earth beneath, rehearsing our songs with diligence, waiting for the lightners that sealed us below so many months ago, to return. For when the time would come that the lightners would herd us back and to many realms, to bring the lord's light to the world. We made sure to be prepared then - as now, as though they had never left."

As they went on, the cold began to fade. She could feel a warmth emanating from the growing ring of glowing figures flying around and above her. Sheltering her from the nigh-freezing winds. "Lightners...was Kris here? Did Kris free you?"

The cherub with the bow smiled. Whenever he talked, his voice echoed throughout the growing cocoon of light that formed around them. "We know not the names of any lightners, but we know that it was not a lightner that freed us. Not this time. It was a woman dressed in red. With long, golden hair and antlers much like yours. Casting open one abaddon after the next with as though she were possessed. And much alike, she payed no mind, wasted no second to hear our pleas for reason."

"But we could see in her eyes that she was not possessed. She was lost in sin and the derangement it brings with it. She had strayed away from god's light. Too far for us to reach her. Too far for anyone to reach her. If she is known to you, I am sorry. She is beyond salvation. She is beyond redemption. On the path she walks right now, only eternal damnation - in life and thereafter - is what awaits her."

"No...Temptress..." Dasher mumbled before stepping forward and shouting at the angel. "Don't say that! It's not too late! If we just get to her, then maybe...maybe..."

The angel cut him off. "I see the temptation to grant forgiveness indefinitely." He didn't raise his voice, but its strength and volume was too much for Dasher to shout over it regardless. "But the lord forgives only those willing to atone. Her mind has long grown so twisted, that she thinks the immoral is moral, and the moral is immoral. She declares sin itself sacred, to justify committing it herself. She convinced herself that those trying to lead her back on a better path, were her enemies, all to mask her unforgivable betrayal. I cannot stop you from pursuing her. But I can tell you right now, that any hope in her redemption and recovery, will only lead to suffering."

Noelle joined Dasher. She opposed the resignation the angel demanded from her as much as he did. "There's got to be something we can do. Please!"

"You and her have much in common. Your fate and hers are inseparably intertwined. I can see your hand in her betrayal. It stems from a betrayal of your own. I can see the same struggle to maintain one's fragile delusions in your eyes, as I did in hers. For you and her, the same actions will lead to the same outcomes, but for her, it is too late. Stray no further from god's light, seek no more justification for mindless lust, or you might find a fate more slow and painful than hers." The warmth was overtaken by a cold shadow that took root in Noelle's back.

Dasher needed a moment to register what the cherub was saying, but when he did, he turned to Noelle with a dreaded expression on his face, and a piercing cold in his eyes. "What is he saying? What does he mean you have a hand in her betrayal?"

Noelle shrugged together, and with tiny steps, moved away from the archer. But before she could turn her aimless whimpers into words, the glowing figure continued. "We see those that come and those that go. Do not fear satan. For while he may imagine himself the corrupter, he is in truth the angel of light. He may seem harsh and unforgiving, but if you allow him to, he may be the beacon that will light your way out of the dark."

With his speech concluded, the cherub dashed in a circle around the two, and flew away. The moment he pierced through the light that surrounded them, all other angels broke formation, flew arcs around them as well and joined him in flying to wherever they were headed.

Leaving her alone, in the cold. With a furious human staring her down. She trembled, and in her nervous steps, stumbled and fell onto the felty grass. "What did you do? What did you do to make him say that? What does that mean you have a hand in her betrayal?"

"I - I - please - I don't know..."

"Answer me!"

"I...I'm not sure. I didn't do anything, I swear!"

"He wouldn't have said so if you didn't!" He covered his mouth and turned around, as if searching for the answer in the grass. But there was none. The longer he stared off, the more he realized as much. And the more he calmed down. She was still on the ground, trembling when he came up to her. Meekly dragging his boots across the ground. Once he had caught up with her though, the look she was met with wasn't one of anger, but resignation.

He sighed and sat on the grass beside her. "This has something to do with what you said earlier, doesn't it?"

"Hm?"

"About you going through something similar to Temptress."

"I don't know...maybe. If I caused this somehow, then I don't know how. I don't know how the dark world works exactly. Kris is the one that knows." He had nothing to say to that. All they could do in this case, was to move on and hope they found Kris again. For the time though, they just sat in the dark. Noelle with her arms around her tucked-in legs. Feeling the wind brush against them and listening to the rustling of grass.

"What's going on over here?" At last, drawn by the light surrounding them for some time, others caught up with them. All the others actually. The old singer, being the one that had the most time, had collected the others one by one and brought them to Noelle and Dasher. They stared at Noelle with expecting eyes. Even now, when Kris wasn't here, the darkners looked to the only lightner they could find for guidance. And Ralsei was the one to put their thoughts into words. "So what are we going to do now?"

Now they expected her to lead. What was she even supposed to say? That they had a lead to where Temptress was, but she was afraid of what would happen if they confronted her. "How come they had elder dragons anyway?"

She had her eyes closed thinking about this for a moment, but that made them spring wide open. "Elder dragons!" She got up. If this was what this was, she had to warn them. "The woman in the temple - the Drakeforger. She said Temptress wants to unleash the elder dragons. Do you think she already did?"

Headbanger, stripped of her style without her shades, folded up her arms and shook her head. "No way. I was around to see 'em get put away. If the devourers were unleashed, you'd know. Trust me. You'd know from everything going topsy turvy. This..." She circled her index finger in the air. "This was nothing."

"Wait..." Noelle was glad to see that Dasher had still enough hope for this to get him to get up and spring into action. "If she wants to unleash the elder dragons, and she hasn't done it yet, that means she's still here!" And just like that, she was caught again. This time in a lie by omission.

The archer fixated his eyes onto hers, making it hard for her to not look back at him. "I know you're worried." He kept her attention by grabbing her hands and holding onto them. "But we have to go after her! We can stop this madness before it gets any worse! And she'll know where the other lightner is!"

He was convincing her. And she could read on their faces, that it raised the spirits of the others as well. Well, half the others. The dragon girls sighed. Headbanger came closer and shook her head. "Sorry, girl. But I'm out. While we had squareboy, I'da said 'Okay. Maybe we can beat pink girl'. But this..."

She pulled the axe they bought her off. "...this was a waste. It was pointless. I know when I'm beat. She's got the tail, she's got the spikes, she's got the edge, she's got the skills. And me? If I'm honest, I got nothin'. Pity I had to learn it the hard way."

She was even more annoyed now at continuously having to pull her hair out of the way. She was too used to the blocky sunglasses keeping her sight clear. Without them, and no longer wearing her coat like a cape, she didn't look like anything special anymore. She was just Susie with a guitar. A more timid version at that, and she knew it.

"Wait! Wait, maybe we can turn this around!" She was getting anxious, seeing the first party member already wandering off.

But her plea was in vain. Still walking away as she did it, Banger turned around. "Nope. I know when I'm beat. You guys are on your own. I was useless anyway."

"Hey, that's not true! We can do this! Somehow...together!"

A moment of relief took her, when she saw the succubus stop and face her one more time. "Sorry, but no. 'We' ain't doing this. No offense girl, but...square guy. Kris - I mean. Not gonna lie, he's a real square. Not the kinda guy I'm seeing let loose at parties. But that keeps him on top of things. Makes him a good leader. And you..." She made a haphazard gesture with her open hand, dismissively spinning it in one direction, then the other. "Nah, really not seeing it."

That was all she said before leaving for good. And apparently, she wasn't the only one. Faith's blanket was now dirty from dragging it along the dirt, presumably when she crawled out of her parachute. It didn't make her approach any more assuring either.

"I'll be leaving as well.", she stated plainly and with devoid of emotion. "I agreed to undo my wards so your sorcerer can bring his door with him. I will honor what I agreed to do, but beyond that, I consider us working together concluded." Noelle was about to say something to the already leaving nun.

But before she could, she turned lightly her way. Not nearly enough for Noelle to see anything more than her covered shoulder. "And don't even think about trying to talk me into staying." She actually physically snarled at her before making her way further through the grass. In a different direction than the other dragon.

Noelle felt like falling on her knees. She had just started taking responsibility for their party. And right from the get-go, two left the group.


	28. Immoralist

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 16

Immoralist

* * *

He didn't say a word throughout the ride. Not that he could have. The cold wind was pressing against his face more than enough. He kept his eyes shut half the time. On a sharp turn to the left, the pressure was wearing on the side of his face too much and he turned his head aside, brushing with his hair against the underside of Axe's head that loomed over him. "This too much for you? Geez, you're quite the wimp aren't you?"

She was half-hunched over him and her arms holding the reins of the lizard carrying them, reached past him to both sides. He couldn't do anything without her noticing. In her arms like this, he was at her mercy, and from the sounds of laughter, she was reveling in it.

The surge was made worse by that curve not only taking them sideways, but downwards, too. They had reached the mainland and were no longer flying inland, but along the coast and down, closer to the water level. One more thing he could tell, was that Axe was making slight changes to the direction they were headed. Correcting their course. She wasn't just headed away from the plane, she had a specific location in mind.

Somewhere right along the shoreline, seeing as she was trailing it southward. Taking him to some place where they could keep him more easily. Likely a prison or a dungeon, something with chains and solid walls. He wouldn't be able to escape once there, not without help. Axe had wisened up to his shackle-breaking trick.

And he couldn't do much to escape now either. His hands were tied. Literally, because she had tied his arms together with a rope. She even paid attention to wrapping it around his arms but not his hands or wrists, so summoning his sword or shield to break free wouldn't work.

"Almost there...here it is." She announced their arrival when they sped past a wound staircase trailing back and forth along a rock wall, up from the beach. The crude steps were carved into the rocky ascent and overgrown with moss and vines in many places. And circling around the water to regain some altitude while accounting for the speed of the dragon carrying them, revealed to Kris their destination.

"I hope it's comfy enough for you. 'cause we're gonna spend a long time shacking up here."

The house Axe's dragon circled on its way, was a wooden house built from crude, slightly mossy planks. It was three storages high, with outside staircases leading to the upper floors, several porches to the sides of it on the ground level, and one balcony on the second and third floor each. It was 'The Fisher's House'. One of the few pieces where every step, lineart, colouring, shading, everything was done by Asriel. The raw, untamed look of nature was what he liked more than Kris did.

She lifted him up with one arm, got off the serpent, patted its back and sent it flying off into the distance. So even if he escaped from the Fisher's House, he wasn't going to be able to use the serpent to fly away. In spite of the open windows with no glass in the frames, it was very dark inside. She had to light several torches and candles on the table.

She first tied him to one of the chairs, then put her scythe down and closed all the windows and doors. "There we go. Nice and comfy I hope. Can't see the lights from outside so even if there was anyone out there, it'll look to them like no-one's in here."

He followed her movements as she pulled back a chair and leaned on the table. "So. Out with them." He looked around in confusion. "The girls told me you make some really good sandwiches. Now hand them over before I come get them." He raised his hands to point out how they were bound together. "All right, but only for as long as I'm sitting here watching you. Can't have you untying yourself, can I?"

He pulled out the whole sandwich bag and placed it on the table. "That's it?" She was a little skeptical when she took one and found it to be nothing more than a bread roll with some meat and a slice of cabbage in-between. Kris wasn't sure what she was expecting. Her doubts vanished when she gave it a try though. She didn't even bother to finish what she bit off and gave her estimate with her mouth still full. "That stuff's really good. What is it again?"

Kris didn't know for sure, but he heavily suspected that 'Butcher' used the processed meat of a murdered lookalike of Berdly when making them. So he stuttered a bit in spite of already having go-to answer. "Uh - poultry. And maybe some duck."

She nodded to highlight her content with what she was trying. "Nice. So." She leaned back and put her boots on the table, but angled them so they didn't get in the way of having Kris in her sights.

"Story time. You're the prisoner here so this is the part where I interrogate you. Tell me the whole story. I wanna know everything about the light world, how you got here, what the last time you got to the dark world was like, and the one before that, Card Kingdom, Canyon City, all the details, just in case the Knight left out anything.

Seeing as this Knight seemed to have a really good idea of what Kris and the others did in their previous visits to the dark world, he didn't see that much harm in re-telling a version of his own of what happened. "...but somehow we made it through. We got to this metal island where we met an old man and Susie, and then Susie helped us get to the main land, but it turned out Susie was actually..."

"Yeah, yeah you can stop right there. You're already past the point where I come in. I know the rest." Axe, leaning on the table by one elbow, was nibbling the crust off of one of the last remaining sandwiches from Kris' bag. For the third time by now.

"So let me get this straight. We're all just inanimate objects in the light world. All those human-looking guys and the smaller folks that came along are tarot cards drawn by deer girl and me and the other succubi are just drawings of Susie. We all just came about because of the hours and hours and hours you spent drooling over some girl from high school."

"I wasn't drooling, I like drawing dragons and she just makes for a good model."

She looked up from her sandwich with dismissively narrowed eyes. "Yeah, sure. A good model. I'll bite. What makes her a good model."

"Well, for one, she's real. Unlike most reference material."

"WHY don't you just use photos of other real dragons?"

"It's not just that, it's - look, when you're in class, and you're bored you can't just get up and walk away. And Susie - I sit right behind her, so when I'm looking forward, to where the black board is, guess who's right there in front of me?"

"Susie."

"And what reference material - that I can look at from different angles - would you say is the most convenient then?"

She didn't look convinced. Or sound the part. But she followed along regardless. "Susie."

"Exactly. And what makes it even better - how round and evened out her face is shaped makes her perfect for doodles and sketches, because she's much easier to draw than most other dragon faces. If I were someone designing characters for something, and I wanted to design a dragon character specifically to make her easy to draw - Susie's round face - and her not having horns or wings, she'd be exactly how I'd make her. She's perfect."

She banged on the table again. "A-ha! See? You think she's perfect!"

"...yes, for doodles when you're in school."

"Suuure." She put the sandwich away and shuffled around on her seat to then lean further forward and pay more attention to him. "Then riddle me this. Some of us sure look like you couldn't get your mind out of the gutter. Take 'zerks. Berserkers. They got big - everything. And they're dressed - well they aren't. How do you explain those?"

"They're based on one of Asriel's favourite characters. Which most of the time I drew for him. Berserkers are really just that character - but as Susie. Or it's Susie - as that character."

That only saw to her roll her eyes. "Okay. What about the Missies? You know, the skin-tight black leather, the whips...Why'd you make those unless you want big girls with lots to grab to dominate you?"

He hesitated for a moment. "I - well you see Asriel alwa-"

"NO!" Her scream shook him straight to his spine. Stopping him at once. "You think you're a sneaky little bastard, but you're not gonna just shift the blame for everything onto your brother! For crying out loud, own something you do for once! There's hundreds of us! I didn't count, maybe it's a thousand. Asriel did NOT force you to draw those. That was all you. I'm not buying that you spend all this time staring at this one girl just because of some stupid 'good model' shit. If it were that - where are the Berdlies? The Noelles?"

"Well there is one 'Berdly' -"

"THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT. No, I'm not buying this bullshit. You - my friend - have a crush. And nothing you say is gonna convince me otherwise. I could ruffle that little head of yours and you'd just tremble like a helpless child."

Kris froze. Staring at her as slowly, a silence settled between the two of them. What was he even supposed to say? She had made up her mind already. He sighed. At this point, shifting the focus to her was the best thing to do. "Why is that so important to you anyway?"

Finally, she started to relax again. He could have sworn he had seen her sweat for a moment there. "So 'effigy' and 'succubus', those are what the Knight kept calling us by. At this point, it's obvious to me why 'effigy'. We're all effigies to Susie. You can play all calm and quiet and pretend like nothing gets to you all you want, but we're living proof of how much she's on your mind. 'Succubus' is what he wanted us to do - if you show up that is. Guess you know by now most of us don't really live up to it. 'xcept maybe the Missies and Beauty. It's the reason I brought you here."

All of a sudden, she got up, pulled back the chair between the two of them and sat closer to him. Turning the chair to face his. And once comfortably seated, she looked a lot more serious than he had ever seen her before. "Kris, be real with me here. You're not making friends with anyone at school, you're not doing so well at school either. And your brother - you kept bringing him up before. His influence is all over the place. You can't go talking about anything we see here for two minutes without mentioning him somewhere. But he's not coming back, is he? Not for long. He's moved on in his life. So even with you get through high school, what then?"

He was staring down at her put-together hands and twiddling thumbs. Looking closely at the alignment of her scales and how it was interrupted between the joints of her fingers. If anything, it was her that was only playing calm. And how her scales grew smaller and more condensed around the claws at the ends of her fingers. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

She grabbed him by the cheek and pulled his face up, practically forcing him to look her in the eyes. "What then, Kris? Life with Asriel's over. And even with Susie and Berdly now - the dark world's novelty is gonna wear off sooner or later. Even if you didn't like Susie, even if it's just as friends - you're gonna drift apart again. So tell me, honestly. What do you have going for you in the light world. What does the light world have to offer for you? 'far as I can see, nothing."

He didn't answer. In the literal sense, he was already in her grip, so he stared back at her. Slowly pulling up the eyebrow least covered by his hair. "Oh come on." She let go of him, but he knew if he started drifting off looking anywhere but her face, she'd just get upset again. "You spent all this time trying so badly to get to the fountain so you can go back to the light world. But for what? What's the point in going back?"

"What else is there to do? I can't just stay in the dark world, right?"

Axe paused for a few moments before she answered. "Why not? Not like there's anything keeping you there."

"I can't just stay here for the rest of my life."

"It doesn't have to be forever. Just long enough for the Knight and this 'Queen' to get done with whatever - and then she's in charge and we can all live together in the light world."

That sounded way too good to be true. "I'm pretty sure there's a catch here." Like the 'balance' between light and dark being broken having consequences like Ralsei said. "Besides, what about my Mom? I can't just leave her."

"I'm pretty sure your mom will be okay."

"I don't think she will. She's having trouble enough getting over Asriel being at university. She doesn't strike me as the kind of person that just 'gets over' losing her son."

"You're not really her son anyway." Kris stared back at her. Silently. Disapprovingly. At least half a minute passed between them like this. "Hello? Anyone there?"

When she 'knocked' on his head with a painful strength in her hand, he was practically forced to answer. "How much about me did the Knight tell you anyway?"

"Lots. Everything he thought I needed to know to play Susie and convince you I'm her. He somehow just - okay no, here's the deal. If you're a lightner, he's gonna know everything about you. He never really explained how he knows, he just does."

"What does he look like anyway?"

"He's got like - horns, but the horns are on his hel - hey!" She gave him another bang on the head. "You're trying to get intel from me! You're the prisoner here, I'm asking the questions. But while we're at the Knight, you can't keep secrets from him. And he's told me plenty." Ever so slightly, Kris shuffled away within his seat, as far as squashing against the lean allowed him to.

"Yep. I know. You can play-pretend all you want. You can distract yourself all you want, thinking about other things like who's doing what, what does this look like, how to get through that, I know she's on your mind. I know you have dreams where you're watching the sunset holding her hand. I know you're doodling and sketching whenever you think no-one's looking, and lately, most of the time you're only doodling her. I know you sit in your room wondering what it'd be like if she talked to you - you know without punching or biting you."

"Let's be real here. You're a punching bag for her. And sooner or later, she's gonna treat you as one again. But you don't have to put up with that. Just stay here with me. We can go fishing, hang out in the fields, we could do anything you want." She noticed his attention drifting off again and grabbed his hands firmly with her own.

More than firmly, she was hurting him. "I could be the the 'Susie' that treats you like you're more than just a punching bag. Anything you wanna do with her, you could do with me. I could be your personal Susie girlfriend." She tried to smile and took one hand off his hands to brush her hair aside to fixate his eyes more clearly. "So? Whaddya say?"

He answered calmly, with a voice clear of doubts and without a moment's hesitation. "No."

She twitched. "Say what?"

"I said no."

Her grip on his hands became stronger, enough so for both his and hers to tremble from the force. "You can't - you can't just - why?"

"I just said I can't just leave Mom, and Noelle's still out there. If I just stay here, then she's stuck here, too."

At last, she let go of him and got up. With how close to him she stood, in the light of the torches at the walls, her shadow covered him, the light trailing along the outline of her uncovered, and well-trained arms. She punched his shoulder in a way that threw him back into the lean. "Forget about the deer! We'll send her back when tempts has taken the throne. No need to worry! So, what do you say?"

"Still no."

"You little shit!" She grabbed the trembling human by the collar and began to shake him. "I put effort into that whole speech, I rehearsed it, you're gonna be at least a little appreciative!" All he could do, was loosen his movements and return to being completely calm. Clearing his mind, distracting his mind. Thinking of anything but this or Susie always worked, it'd work now.

"And don't go playing 'cool and quiet' now either. I don't know how she takes that, but I see right through that shit!" She finished up with her finger pointed at him in a menacing way, inches away from his face, and then punched his other shoulder with enough force to send the chair falling sideways, and him with it.

With this, she stormed off. Kris was still lying on his side, tied to his chair, so he couldn't see her and relied on listening to when she was gone. He waited until the coast was clear and began summoning his sword. And froze in motion when he heard her voice from close by. "I see you full well." She didn't even leave the room, she was just somewhere around the kitchen. Watching him. Pouting in the corner like a spoiled little girl that didn't get her way.

* * *

Noelle didn't sulk over their setback for long. Not least because Dasher was there to cheer her up. And Starlet was still with them. She appeared to have some grasp of the surrounding geography and led them in one direction. In the distance, where they were headed, they could see acres of crop plants ranging to increasingly wide reaches, the closer they got to it.

Half way through, the glowing angels accompanied them, floating beside the little group of four. From time to time, when Noelle hesitated to move on and teared up a little, the archer was quick to be at her side, place his hand on her back and encourage her to move on. Ralsei, usually upbeat and happy, had a cold look on his face and did not say a word throughout their walk towards the farmland.

As they got closer, the fields appeared to form a ring around a township, built on trampled earth. The occasional stray blade of grass lying on the field gave them an inclination that the path was once grown on like everything else. The further inward they crossed through the fields, the more they began to see people working on them.

Monsters on one hand - or at least darkners that looked like monsters. On the other, they saw same lengthy people with long, grey legs and tiny feet, and people with goat heads as in the city before.

Noelle was a little less clueless than Kris. She recognized that she had to pay attention to patterns and where she knew what from. Here was no exception. Those strange people had come with the Journeyman, Sinwielder, Starlet, all of the major arcana. So those smaller, more numerous people were what minor arcana became in the dark world.

The grey metal people were the suit of swords. Their long legs were the blade, their feet were so small, because at the end of the blade came its pointy end. By process of elimination knowing what the other suits were, the men and women with goat heads were doubtlessly the suit of pentacles.

The pentagram used in most card designs - even her own - was often associated with worship of a caprine deity. That was why their horns grew diagonally, so as to make up the upper points of a pentagram, rather than in a curve like with a real goat.

Maybe this was something she could use to break this deafening silence between them all. "Say..." It didn't take more to draw the archer's attention. "The other people - you know the other people you came here with like those over there. Do they have a name?"

For a moment, the archer looked concerned, expecting her to bring up something that matched the constricting mood, but his face loosened up when he realized there was no cause for concern. "Of course." As though to present them to her, he swung up his arm with his palm pointing up, directed vaguely towards one of the 'swords'. "Those fine fellows are Ironfolk. When we can divide tasks between our houses, they tend to make up our guards. And those over there, would be goatfolk. Usually tasked with magic and administration.

"...and...and the others?"

"Goldfolk - most of the time they are the arms of the Empress. And our wooden friends are Arborfolk. Workers and manufacturers - that's what they've always been." He took a few moments to examine the farm workers in on the surrounding fields. "Now that I think about it, why aren't there any Arborfolk or Goldfolk here? You don't just have entire houses missing. Normally at least."

He turned to march straight onto one of the acres, pushed his way past stalks of corn and called for one Goatman working in the middle. "Hey! Hello! It's me!" The caprine worker looked busy before, but the moment he heard Dasher calling for him, he actually put everything aside and met him half-way. Not far behind, the others followed him. "Say, I fail to see any Goldfolk or Arborfolk around here. Is something unusual afoot?"

The way the goat man raised his eyebrow projected the impression that Dasher must have been living under a rock to ask something like this. "You could say that again. Your 'beloved's new dragon minions are only a growth in numbers away from laying siege to this town. They are camping right on the other side of it. And we sent for reinforcements from the Empress, but no-one came back. Our numbers around here are stretched thin. If the rumours are true, we won't be able to hold this town."

"What rumours?"

"Temptress is searching something. Carving holes into the ground with a magic we haven't seen her use before. If what the locals say is true, there is an entire swarm of bigger dragons - elder dragons - sealed into the ground somewhere out here."

"Tempt - did you see her?"

The farm worker shrugged. "Someone surely has. But if you follow the succubi from just outside the town, you'll surely come across her eventually. And someone will have to. I don't think we will live through any more bad news at this point."

"I think I bring good news." The smiling archer dragged Noelle to the front and presented her to the goat man. "I come with a lightner. A real one, in the flesh. I came with two at first, but the dragons took the other one prisoner."

The farm worker raised both eyebrows now. "Well, that is at least something. Not quite good news just yet though. But maybe we can turn it into that. Is it true?" He lowered himself just a bit, to look up at the startled deer. "Are you really a lightner?" She nodded without saying anything.

"By the li - by you. Come on. Dasher - Starlet! Good to see you. Follow me, travelers, I will take you to the Emperor. Maybe he knows how we can leverage the power of a lightner." He just left his plow behind where it was and walked up to and past the rest of the group, onto the path between the fields and led the way inwards. "Follow me."

It was at this point that they passed the first wooden huts and sheds. Most of them were merely utilities for the surrounding farmland. And the closer to the actually built-on properties they came, the more they could read the urgency in the farmers' rhythm. The Ironfolk and Goatfolk made up a small proportion of the total amount of people they passed.

Moreso in the town than outside of it. The sign at the entrance read 'Welcome to Tiller Town'. All buildings here were made of wood, and very intricately put together. Every house was symmetrical, and down to every board that made up its exterior, matched in measurements that somehow just - fit together perfectly in a way Noelle wasn't sure how to describe.

Some of the buildings almost looked like they fit more into a western theme. Noelle even saw them pass by a saloon, down to the sign above the entrance describing it as one. On its side, a trough served up water to the horses bound next to it. Come to think of it, the rows of houses built along the road the way they did made more sense if you thought of it as western town. But there was a crossing in the much more busy center of the town.

After a turn there, they approached a building large enough, its tall roof peeked out over the rows of houses even before they got anywhere near it. It was designed a lot like a barn, but it didn't really make sense for it to be one, being built where it was. "Not far anymore. We're already at the town hall.

It actually was a barn on the inside. Complete with upper layers of storage that were unused. Only that there were no animals, tools, or vehicles stored here. Not even crops or hay. Instead, a wooden stage had been built in the middle, with a circular, wooden support structure on top, from which fine white silk cloth - covered in glittering gemstones - hung down all around it. Behind the curtain were two figures. One sat on a throne.

And next to the stage, stood someone else. An elderly human, his age betrayed by the folds on his face, and the short, greyed out hair. Dressed in a robe made of several very long layers of brocade fabric with flower patterns on them. He was hunched forward, supporting himself on a long, golden bishop's crosier.

His robe was covered in golden crosses, and it was cut into deliberately long drapes to still hang down to his feet, even when wrapped around the enormous hump on his back. The hand not occupied with holding his staff, had at least one golden ring with some colourful gemstone embedded onto it on each finger.

She knew this was the Hierophant. Modeled after Father Alvin. The hump on his back was a tortoise shell, they just couldn't see it because the robe covered it. In a slow motion, he gave them a warm smile. "Travelers - lightner. This is Father Asmodeus. He will be your steward to our honored Emperor, as he is to all." The moment the introduction was made, the man guiding them made sure to leave quickly.

When he opened his mouth, Noelle was startled. She didn't expect him to actually have Father Alvin's calm, clear voice, but he did. She should have guessed, going by the Journeyman and the Sinwielder having their respective original's voice, but somehow, she was still taken by surprise. "I hear a lightner is here with you. Please, step forward, so that I can look over you more closely." Noelle did as she was asked, in very, very slow steps, dragging her feet across the dry, sand-like earth.

"A curious colour to arrive in. Deep blue. The colour of integrity. It means that what brought you here, within the greater cosmic order, is a lacking introspection and surety. Indecisiveness has mowed down your moral fibres and left your character dull and devoid of redeeming traits."

"Than- thanks! Maybe? That didn't sound very nice."

Nothing about his half-lidded smile changed. "I offer insight. Not compliments. I foresee that as with all longer visits to the dark world, your journey is one of discovery. It will remind you of what is important in life and how crucial those things are. You will learn to appreciate what you have, and find a better outlook on life."

A bright yellow light began to emanate from the spiral at the top of his staff. "Curious. My power mends what is broken. Do you have something it could be responding to?" Something broken? That only left her fidgeting about. The only 'broken' thing she could think of was her staff, but she didn't have her staff on herself anymore. It was left behind when she and Dasher jumped out of the plane.

But then again, she didn't get her staff in a normal way either. For a moment she had completely forgotten that she only got it by summoning it, with magic. And she always had it ever since she summoned it the first time. Now she was expected to summon it again. It worked like regular magic, right? It had to. She just had to trace her steps from the first time. She pictured herself right outside the safety of Ralsei's silent kingdom. Standing next to Kris. Kris drawing his sword and attacking her.

The shock she felt.

The panic.

The staff. Just like that, it was there, in her hand. Still broken in two. One half in each hand. "Show it to me. Raise both pieces." The priest beckoned her to come closer. And she did. When she presented him the two pieces, the yellow glow of his staff gained intensity, loosely hanging strings of light reached out for her staff, tethered it to that of the hierophant. Tugged at it as though they were actual physical strings.

Eventually strongly enough to hold the pieces' weight. She kept her hands open, and soon enough, the pieces floated up out of them. The stream of light coming from the crosier filled her staff. The pieces aligned themselves the way they were aligned when it broke.

And then right between them, out of thin air, the bits that were lost when it broke appeared and joined them together. A faint blast of green light emanated from the middle, and right from there, a new, wider vine wrapped itself around her staff, and circled its top, over the wilted crown.

It wasn't just repaired, an additional, thornless vine was wrapped around it to make it more stable. When it glided back down into her hand, she grabbed it with one, and slowly dangled it back and forth. It didn't fall apart. It was fixed and in mint condition.

The priest bowed and walked backwards, ascending the stage without turning around. "It is time for the emperor to receive you." He grabbed the curtain by the end he was standing at and walked from right to left, pulling it open and revealing the two inside. The broader, standing figure, holding a tray in front of the man on the throne...was Asgore. Kris' father. She couldn't explain him, as he wasn't one of her cards, and he wasn't a human reimagining of Kris' father. He looked just like him. Down to the shorts and his pink flower-patterned shirt. "Oh, are the lightners really blessing us?"

"Then what are you waiting for?" Stretching out his arms, the man on the throne spoke up. "Bring them in, let me see them."

'Asgore' walked out to the approaching group and greeted Noelle with a warm smile. "Howdy there. I'm the Emperor's right hand. A pleasure to meet you."

Further complaints from the Emperor spurred him on to hurry with pulling the other end of the curtain to the side, giving Noelle a full view of the human on the throne. It was a man with reddish skin, short black hair, a thin black mustache and a goatee. He had a wide smile on his face and his buck teeth stood out just a bit. On his head, grown like on Temptress', were the antlers of a deer monster. "Come closer, so I can give you a look. Welcome, welcome everyone."

Noelle came closer to the throne, but the others walked up the stairs and up the stage as well. The emperor sat in his throne, dressed in a thick red and white Christmas robe, here and there with gold woven onto the wool. The outer coat was open to the front, but it had an equally voluminous winter coat wrapped around him beneath it. Fittingly with the theme, he didn't wear some extravagant but impractical pair of shoes, but solid brown boots made for traversing snow.

His fingers were adorned with more rings than Asmodeus'. And like several other darkners like him, he had the voice of the person he was modeled after. Hearing her father's voice beckon her was what gave her the confidence to come as close to the throne as she did. Even if it wasn't really her father, she liked to imagine that - in some capacity - it was. And in spite of that..."Come on now, not so shy. I don't bite. Or do I!" She gave 'Asgore's elbow a slap and laughed.

A sense of...nostalgia? No, comfort. A sense of comfort overcame her being around the Emperor. It almost felt like she was back at home, snug inside the isolated house, with snowed in grass and trees behind every window. And as if a lot of changes for the worse had been undone in a matter of seconds.

The human in front of her had the cheerfulness her father always had when he and Noelle were alone together. Not to mention that his voice was clearer than she had heard it in quite some time now. Just like that, all the anxiousness and the worries of what came for them, and whether she would be able to even do anything, let alone succeed at getting through to Temptress, blew away.

"So are you the only lightner? The messages I got said..."

Starlet came forward to clarify: "Hubby sent you two. But we were ambushed. The human was kidnapped, but we still have her."

Relaxed as always, the Emperor shrugged. "Better than nothing. Welcome aboard young lady. I'm sure you'll work some real miracles." Just from that, she felt pressured by the expectations put on her. "Aw come on, not so nervous. It'll all work out, you'll see. Even when things don't look so good for a moment, in the end, things are never as bad as they seem. You'll do just fine." He even leaned forward to grab her by the head and rub her hair. "Now the human. Is he on the dragons' side or..."

"I doubt it. They took him by force. And they need him alive for some reason, so he isn't all lost either."

"Hey." He gave her a wink. "That's some good news right there. I'll be honest with you. You're not the reinforcements I expected. But you're a welcome surprise. I'll be honest. We've got more than enough manpower to fend off the dragons as things stand now. But if what Temptress is looking for is as big and powerful as the people here say, then we'll need the full army to stand a chance. But hey. No need to look so down. Things aren't as bad as they look. Here, I have something for you."

He reached behind his throne and picked up a bag. "The dragon girls aren't letting us through to Temptress without it getting ugly, but maybe a small group can slip through more easily. They gave us trouble right away. They wanted something from us. They even got one girl standing just outside the town waiting. I want you to have it. Come on, go ahead. This might be your ticket to passing them and going after Temptress."

When he dangled the bag a little closer, Noelle took this as her cue to reach for it and loosen the knot keeping it shut. It contained sandwiches. Very plain sandwiches, but they were definitely slices of bread with cheese and some other food in-between. "Thank...you?"

Seeing her confused face sent the Emperor slapping his knee and bursting out in laughter. "Don't look at me like that, they were the ones asking for it. Now off you go. I've been taking my time, but time isn't really what we have. I figured we could use it as a bargaining chip to move my troops south, but even if I did, they wouldn't let them get to our friend. But if you distract them with it, maybe a small group like you guys can slip through. Better yet, if anyone can get through to her, it's Dashie right here. But time's short. The faster you get to Temptress, the better."

Noelle froze, but then shook her head, ashamed of how rude she felt she had been. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

He patted her shoulder. A familiar, and much-needed feeling. "No need for that. It's you that's helping me."

Dasher bowed before the Emperor, and Noelle and Ralsei figured to do the same. When they left, Starlet made no effort to follow them. She was here to lead them here after all. She wasn't much of a help anymore. Their group was reduced to one of three.

From a certain point onward, the southern part of the farmland surrounding the town was empty. Completely empty. Everyone stayed away from the edge. Right on the dirt road, between the fields, stood a single person in white. From a little more closely, it was a sight that made Noelle's heart skip a beat. It was Susie, the colors of her skin and hair were undeniably the same ones, but she had much softer, more enticing and well-aligned facial features.

Her hair was longer than with a regular succubus. And it wasn't messy, it didn't show signs of neglect, quite the opposite. It was well kept, combed so thoroughly, the smooth silken strands hung down her back without a single one standing out. She highlighted her eyelashes with mascara, and wore a white, see-through dress that was so transparent, you could see the white underwear beneath it stand out against her scales.

The only thing out of place, was her delicate feet. To match with everything else, she expected her to wear high heels, but the dragon wore sandals over her much less menacing-looking feet.

Even the way she smiled alone stoked up an uneasy itch and made her feel more welcome to approach her. And her voice, even her voice was somehow...she didn't even know. "Ah, the lightners. Or should I say, the lightner and her party of 'heroes'? My name is 'Beauty'. A pleasure to see - uh..."

Their mood was thrown aback completely when Noelle heard the clicking of a gun being readied to fire. With both hands stretched out to hold it, Ralsei was pointing his pistol right at Beauty's head. He had a cold expression on his face, his eyes were wide open and all emotion had left his voice. "Where is Kris?"

"Ralsei!" By impulse, Noelle voiced her outrage.

And the archer tried pressing down the gun while trying to talk sense into him as well. "What in the world are you doing?"

With her snout tilted upwards, the dragon girl stared back at him. The calm softness of her voice wasn't scared away by the prince's sudden choices. "The human is in a safe location. Where it is, I don't know."

"I don't believe you." Ralsei stepped closer and pressed the barrel of his gun into the dragon's snout. "Where is he?"

"I really don't know!"

Her voice became a little more shaky, and what was more, Dasher took up the initiative all of a sudden, grabbed the gun with both hands and wrestled it from the struggling goat boy's hand. "Give me that! What's gotten into you? It's obvious she's telling the truth!"

As soon as the situation was dismantled, the dragon girl relaxed again. With one finger in her mouth, grinning like a giddy little girl, she walked backwards on her forefeet. "Those are some heated tempers, sure. But did you only come here to point your weapons at me?"

Noelle snapped out of her shock and raised the bag of sandwiches. "Yes...yes. We have something for you..." For a moment, she forgot that the bag was their bargaining chip and could pull it away from the slowly reaching hand of the dragon girl. "Wait. I - we want something in return. We want you to let us through so we can meet Temptress."

Beauty shook her head. "You know I can't do that. She gave me orders to keep the Emperor's people away, and certainly you too if you came along."

Careful not to let Beauty make any too sudden movements, Noelle backed away. This bag was her one chance at getting to Temptress. She couldn't let this chance slip away. With some distance, one pair of acres further away from the dragon at the edge of the town, she waited for the others to follow her, and led them further away to be sure to be out of hearing range.

"What should we do? This is our chance to talk to them. But if they won't let us through, what...I wish Kris was here. The sandwiches were his idea. How did he even get that idea? How did he know sandwiches would work?"

Now that the Susie-like was out of sight, the prince put his gun away. "That's easy. The succubi are all 'Susie' in a way. And when she was in our party, she said something about ham sandwich day."

The perplexed doe's eyes widened. "You mean - is that why he brought up ham sandwich day in the castle?"

"Yes. I think. I don't really ask him these kinds of questions, but...do you know what that even is?"

The sudden curiosity and change of subject was a welcome ease to the air between them. "Yes. It's an event we used to have at our school. Kris' mother would make sandwiches for all the students of several classes. But when we were younger, Susie went on an eating frenzy, ate all of them at once and smashed all the plates."

"Oh goodness."

"Yeah...she can be like that sometimes." She pulled her head back into the confines of her robe to hide her reddening cheeks.

"Nonetheless, Kris must have figured that they are all similar to Susie in some way, and that things that work on Susie, work on the succubi as well." Ralsei froze for a solid five seconds. His face turned more rigid and slowly, he looked back at Noelle after a moment of consideration. "I know how we can get past them."

"How?"

The cold, sociopathic streak he suddenly showed when they met Beauty was all gone. He smiled at her with the same familiarity as before, as if it had never happened. "Give me the bag. I know exactly what to do." And unlike Beauty, he didn't reach to pull it out of her hand, but held his hand open and her way, waiting for her to give it to him on her own volition. "Now before we talk to her...we'll be meeting all the others. When we do, get ready to run, just in case what I'm thinking doesn't quite work."

That hint of doubt made her suspicious. "What are you thinking anyway?"

"If what works on Susie works on the succubi, then I can put them to sleep."

"How?"

But they were already too close to Beauty for her to not listen in. Now much more friendly and much more confident, the prince walked right up to her. "We will give them to you, but ONLY if we can talk to all of you."

He was met with well-reasoned skepticism. "All of us? Why?"

"Because we have another offer, but we want all of you to hear it at once. We want to be the ones who tell you everything about it."

It was clear that Beauty didn't quite believe him at first. But after trying to read him through the flat surfaces on his face, she shrugged it off and danced away. "All right. Follow me, I'll take you right to them." So far so good. She led the way. Out of the empty patches of soil and onto the meadows outside. Past several smaller hills, until they made their way up one really big one.

Here, a little army of Grunts and Berserkers lay on and around a few rocks. Twiddling their thumbs, staring into the pitch-black sky. One was lying on the grass with her hands behind her head and tipping her feet in an even rhythm. Another was resting against a nearby tree the way Susie often did with school lockers. "Wake up everyone! We have guests."

Most of them didn't even notice the trio following her until Beauty drew attention to them. "And they have something for us."

Now they REALLY had their attention. Everywhere, around them, dragon girls got up from the grass and the rocks and gathered all around them. Ralsei looked over to Noelle. It seemed this was the time, so she gave the dragon girls what they were here for. She passed around one sandwich after the other, the more she gave away, the more greedily those that hadn't gotten one yet, swarmed them and reached for her bag.

When she looked to the prince, she wasn't met with a sign that he intended to follow through with his idea just yet, and the sandwiches didn't seem to run out for the time being either. Like with the bag Kris had gotten, the tiny bag had piles over piles of sandwiches to pull out. Ralsei waited until she either got close to running out of sandwiches, or did run out.

Because once she did, the Grunts stopped swarming them. When all the nearby ones were distracted, that was when Ralsei climbed up on one of the rocks, inhaled as far as his lungs allowed and then began to sing.

To sing with a voice much clearer than the bumbling, uneasy tangle he was usually in. His song had a melancholic tune and described imagery all about tall walls and empty roads. It didn't take long, until the dragons - all of them - even Beauty, were overcome with fatigue and dozed off. He kept singing for a while longer to make sure they were fast asleep, but from what it seemed, his plan worked. The succubi were incapacitated. And the path to Temptress was open.


	29. The Dragonborn Comes

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Draconic Fortune

Chapter 17

The Dragonborn Comes

* * *

They ran along the hills as fast as they could. Ralsei and Noelle with their robes lifted at all times and Dasher holding his hat in place so it didn't fall off in the wind. They knew what direction they had to go, they just had to keep going fast enough to catch up. Temptress had to be here somewhere. They knew it, because they weren't randomly running southwards.

Temptress had left behind an entire trail of ravines and holes in the ground, often swarming with small angels. They had to watch out not to stumble, as almost the entire rest of the way, they were moving downhill. The further they followed the trail, the more cherubs were still around the gorges. They were catching up, they just had to hurry.

"Wait, there she is!" At the bottom of a big hill, beneath an oak tree, she stood with a lantern. Accompanied by a few succubi. "Hey! Stop!" On their way down, Dasher called for her. "Temptress! Wait!" You could hear the desperation in his voice. But alerting them of their presence wasn't the best idea.

By the time they were anywhere near close enough to talk to any of them, the two Grunts had already gotten ready for combat, and another succubus with a stetson that they hadn't seen before, pointed a pistol at them.

Not that it got to that confrontation, as before they arrived, the woman in red raised her hand. She was holding something pointy and pointed it at the ground in front of her. With a shrill voice that startled Noelle and Ralsei, she screamed: "Queen's Delight!" When she did, a red, linear beam shot out of the pointy end of the object she was holding, and she used it to draw a line along the ground.

As soon as she was done, the earth began to tremble. Along the red line on the ground that was still shining from when the beam hit it, the earth itself ripped open, revealing a large cavern beneath, followed by a brightly shining swarm of cherubs streaming into the sky. "Curses. More angels!"

"Wait, stop!" The second time round, the archer managed to draw Temptress' attention.

The only words she had to say to him were: "Get lost!" before raising herself upon a little red cloud and flying away. And they couldn't chase her, because the battle-ready succubi stood in the way. The prince ran out of patience with them and just began singing a lullaby like he had with Temptress' army. It worked, they fell asleep and gave the three heroes an opportunity to go after Temptress. They immediately caught up with her, because she was flying about aimlessly. "I can feel it! It is so close! How could that one not have been it!"

"Temptress! Wait!" Whenever Dasher got too close to her, she surged away in another direction in search of what she was looking for. "Listen to me! I know you're scared, but it's all right. I forgive you! You can still walk away from all this!"

What he was saying angered her enough to stop in her tracks. She pointed at him with the brown object. As Noelle knew, a piece of the Knight's armor. Pointy, but curved, less like a cone and more like the tooth of a giant animal. "Forgive me? YOU forgive ME? If there's anyone in need of forgiveness, it's you! For making me waste my time with a spineless coward like you! Now get lost, before I-"

She stopped mid-sentence to pull back and inspect the armor piece. She pointed it Dasher's way and then froze. "I found it..." She completely ignored Dasher and flew right past him. If he hadn't still been harbouring hopes of saving her, he could have easily readied his bow and arrow and shot her in the time it took for Temptress to float from one place in this field to the other.

She was headed for a spot a few dozen feet away from Dasher and once there, floated up to be in a better position when she pointed the armor piece on the ground and repeated the chant that appeared to set it off. "Queen's Delight!"

Again, its ray carved itself along the previously untouched grassland and where the singed earth glowed with residual heat, the soil parted with bits of solid earth cracking out and down to a sound that resembled that of bones breaking. Then, with a much greater strength, the ground pulled itself wide open to reveal a gorge full of fire and molten rock at its bottom.

When the witch moved closer to take a look and found what she saw to differ vastly from what all the other openings looked like, she jumped with the anticipation of a child on a Christmas morning. "Yes! Finally! I found them!"

And she was right. Within the cavern below the field, an entire swarm of horned reptiles flew about. Some wrestling in a contest for dominance, some going about their merry way, but as soon as they became aware that the path outside was open, any previous animosity between them moved aside for the pursuit of freedom. The first to rush upwards was a green wyrm with two backward horns and a very long neck. When with a final, powerful swing of its wings, it surged outside, the gust of wind it cast pushed the archer back and almost swept him off his feet.

By the time Noelle and Ralsei caught up, the scaled giants were already streaming out of the ground in the dozens, oversounded only by the hysterical chatters and bickers of an overjoyed witch. "It's too late!" the archer shouted. "She's already released them."

With her arms spread out, the witch bent backwards to look up at all the passing dragons. And screamed: "Yes! Yes! Show me all the beasts that this world has to offer!"

"What have you done? Why would you do this?"

"I need soemthing to control! Something strong enough to face the guardians of this realm!"

"There's no way you can control them all! Look at them!"

"I don't have to! I just need to find...the right...one!" She was staring upwards at the stream of dragons to inspect them. And by the end of it, she appeared to have spotted what she was looking for and sped up into the sky.

"This isn't good. Those will be a problem." The dragons coming out of the gorge were all the size of a building, or bigger, and flew about so densely in the sky above, that they almost formed an orb made of dragons, that slowly expanded as more joined the swarm.

"Hey!" To their shock, the three Susies from before had reached them as well. And with the one hand that was free, the cowgirl shot them a wink. "Y'all still got problems of your own."

Dasher tried nocking his arrow, but before he could anywhere with that the cowgirl pointed her weapon at him and shot. Instead of firing a bullet, a mechanism on her weapon began spinning and a blue cloud came out of the barrel. From within it, a miniature dolphin shot out his way. On its way to the archer, it grew in size. By the time it got to him, it was a life-sized dolphin and its impact launched him back onto the ground, closer to the hole the elder dragons were coming from.

Holding her gun in place with nothing but her finger by the hammer, the cowgirl gave the frozen doe a wink. "Like it? It's called the 'Barrels of Fate'. I pull the trigger on this baby, anything can happen. Ain't that neat? Sure is neat." The gun had a particular design, with cogwheels on the left and right hand side solidly built onto it. The cogwheels were orange and blue, the barrel red, the grip yellow and the bulbous cylinder holding it together came in cyan.

Multiple bright colours, but strongly in contrast with each other and not blending well together at all. And the cogwheels weren't purely optical, as they were turning just before the dolphin came out. "I'd think twice before gettin' too close. Got no need to reload, so you make one wrong move, I could torpedo this thing into a frenzy." When Ralsei started to give singing another shot, the cowgirl's hand shot right his way and she fired just as quickly.

The clicking of gears turning and the gust of green smoke was followed up with a pile of porcelain plates appearing out of thin air between Ralsei and the gunslinger and falling on the ground. Shattering on impact. The 'attack' didn't reach Ralsei, but it was enough to startle him and get him to stop singing. "Not this time. And no runnin' away either."

They couldn't shoot her, they couldn't sing her to sleep. They couldn't get up close to wrestle the gun from her, because the Grunts to her left and right stood ready to fend off attacks like that. All they could do, was to stand still as a ceaseless flood of large, conventional feral dragons shot out of the ground behind Dasher to join the already expanding cloud above them.

Dasher and Ralsei were out of options. If they wanted to get out of this one, Noelle had to do something. She stood perfectly still, a motionlessness driven by fear. But there was something she could do without moving. Without moving her arms and her staff even an inch, she began channeling the same magic that summoned her vines and made them slowly grow out of the ground, near cowboy-Susie's right hand.

Luckily, it was out of the succubus' field of view. A disadvantage of having a snout as long as hers was that she couldn't see what was on the ground unless she looked directly down. If Noelle could get hold of the gun, then maybe Ralsei would have had the time to sing them a lullaby or Dasher the time to shoot them. "Much better. Now, y'all gonna be nice and lay down your weapons nice and slow."

She had no intention to move. Whether to put down her staff or otherwise. Ralsei and Dasher slowly followed her instructions. Noelle hoped her meekly holding a staff wouldn't be a problem. She was wrong. "Hey!"

With her free hand, the gowgirl pointed at the glowing circles crowning the bulbous tip of her staff. "What's this?"

She had to speed up for this to work. She channeled her magic faster and wound the thorny fibre around the gunslinger's weapon. "Hey! What the..." she managed to get a tight grip on the barrel, but not enough to wrest it from the dragon's hand. And the gunslinger wasn't bluffing either. Her first reaction was to pull the trigger multiple times.

The vines were pulling it down so it wasn't aimed at anybody, but it didn't have to be. Gust after gust of smoke burst out of it, each in a different colour. It made a several metre tall ball of fur appear, a pogo stick that jumped around by itself and a bunch of rocks, all taking position in random places around them. The fourth shot had everyone back away as it started with lit firecrackers coming out of the barrel.

Then bigger ones, full-fledged Sylvester rockets shot out of the gun, made sharp turns and surged into the sky. A whole volley of them came out of the barrel. And on their way up, more and more of them exploded in deafening bursts, followed by expanding patterns of blinding, multi-coloured light. The further up they got without exploding, the bigger the explosion was when they did. Until that final splash of red lights hit part of the ever-growing swarm.

Transfixed onto the light show, everyone including the other succubi backed away from the cowgirl that still tried to free her weapon from Noelle's grip.

"Shi- fu- this can't be happening." She tried shaking it off, but couldn't even get out of the first vines around it, and Noelle made sure to summon more to strengthen her grip on it. While the gunslinger struggled to not let go of her weapon, the dragons above roared in response to the perceived attack. One green wyrm in particular broke from the rest of the swarm, made a wide arc and spiraled down to the ground.

The gunslinger was the only person to refuse to move aside, and so it was her that the bigger dragon made its way to. It plucked her from the ground with its jaws and launched her into the air before adjusting its maw and snap it shut with the cowgirl inside. That was the last anyone saw from the gunslinger, and her gun.

It flew back into the swarm and left everyone else alone, but they all took the same thing from this. "Dude!" One of the two remaining Grunts patted the other's shoulder. "We've got to get out of here." Without further ado, the succubi made a run for it. And in a different direction, so did Noelle and the others. They ran back up the hill to get a better view of the situation.

When Dasher stopped, they all did. The swarm kept growing, the stream from below didn't stop in all that time. "This is bad. At this rate, no-one in town is going to be safe. Wait - get down!" A red wyvern shot down and straight their way. Dasher ducked and pressed Noelle onto the ground as well. Leaving the beast empty-handed after it passed them. The air currents it drew along its way back into the air, attested to the speed and the force involved in its movements.

They didn't get up until Dasher was done watching it rejoin its kind in the sky. "We have to warn the Emperor. I didn't see any of our ballistas, but if we get reinforcements from the Empress, she might send us some. I don't think we can take on big dragons like that without a harpoon or something like one."

When something about the dragon's movements changed, they continued to watch to find out what exactly. Then it became clear that in spite of their number not shrinking, the swarm grew less dense. They were loosening their formation. The archer was the first to take note of what that meant. "Run!"

All three resumed rushing up the hill, along the freshly torn ravines. When the tremors of a giant lizard landing startled the terrified deer, she tripped over her robe and fell on the ground. It took the prince to realize it, and when she turned around, the beast was coming right her way. The shock of seeing it stumble her way so fast, kept her in place, even when Ralsei tried to pull her by her hand. "Come on!"

But it was hopeless. She couldn't move. She always had a feeling she would die this way. Staring her death straight in the eyes, perfectly able to evade it physically, but too terrified to do so. When she pondered her life up to this point, the only detail somewhat amiss was the growing yellow glow in the corner of her eye.

The wyvern came closer and didn't stop until it was so close, that it was blocking her view of the swarm and its shadow in the absent moonlight reached all the way to where Noelle and Ralsei were. But when it was already opening its mouth to douse them in flames, a swarm of glowing cherubs sped into the way of the fire and caught the attack in Noelle's stead.

Giving Dasher the time he needed to run back, grab her by the other wrist and help her back up so they could continue running. In fact as they hurried up the hills, more swarms of little angels converged around them, throwing themselves in harm's way to shield the three of them whenever another one of the dragons caught up and tried to roast them.

Their sacrifice allowed the heroes to get all the way back up to the hill. To the tree and the rocks where the Susies hung out when they first came through. Some of them were still here, and awake, but when they saw Noelle and the others run up to them, the will to take them prisoner was overshadowed by the need to run away from the half dozen large dragons chasing them.

The little crowd of pursuers they had accrued split apart to chase after the strewn groups of Grunts and Berserkers. Giving the heroes more leeway to make their escape to town.

At least that was what they were hoping they could do. It was too late for that. two giant dragons were already on their side of the fields around the town and another one was already IN the town. Setting the sheds and barns and other buildings on fire. No doubt they were going to go on to raze the entire town to the ground if they weren't stopped.

But even if they got involved, what were they going to do about it? Dasher's arrows weren't going to do much to regular wyverns, and these dragons were several times larger. His arrows weren't going to have much of an effect, if any at all. Noelle tried summoning vines, but the ones she managed to grow, were back to normal size. If they had been as big as when they fought Faith, then maybe! But they weren't going to accomplish much like this.

Dasher watched helplessly as the red among among the giants faced down and encased a panicked worker in a pillar of flame. "At this rate, they'll burn down everything! We've got to do something."

The prince told him the same thing Noelle was thinking. "No...no. I don't think anything we can do is going to solve this."

"The Gorge of Desire has been opened!" A survivor from their chase earlier, an angel with the body of a little wolf boy, came flying their way. He had gotten away from shielding Noelle and the others with a singed leg and couldn't fly properly any more. He struggled to keep his altitude on his way and landed on one of the rocks to rest there. "The beasts are unleashed, they cannot be bested by normal means. But there is one they fear! One who approaches and can best them."

The cherub didn't move an inch when a large red dragon landed right in front of Noelle, ready to attack. Before it had any time to do so, they felt a gust of wind press against them from above, coming from something shooting through the air above them like a fighter jet. Something surged straight to the red wyvern and dragged it along its way to the airspace above the town.

The cherub, apparently expecting Noelle's savior, continued unabated. "In our tongue, he is the scion of Mace: Dragonborn!" The figure in question was a person, but an impossible one by light world standards. It was the same person the Drakeforger had showed her. A man that was half dragon and half Boss Monster. He had a broad goat face with fangflaps and patches of white fur littering his green-scaled body. His face, hands, feet and horns were those of a Boss Monster, but he also had the wings and the tail of a dragon. "It is the Dragonborn!"

He wore a plain suit of leather armor with pelts here and there wrapped over it and a helmet with strategically arranged holes to wrap over the base of his horns to make it look as though the horns were part of the helmet and not his head.

He was holding a greatsword twice his height in length and several times over with the width of its hilt. Before the red dragon in the outskirts had any chance to claim more victims, the half-dragon's huge blade buried itself sideways into the beast's back and the force with which it struck upon landing, was enough to flip it over and startle it.

The Dragonborn didn't let his opportunity go to waste and dragged his already lodged sword around the elder dragon's body, onto the belly of the beast, cutting it open all the way down and showering himself in the gushing blood of the creature. When he saw a blue dragon set a larger, public building on fire, he ran towards it, took a deep breath and unleashed a frosty haze cold enough to not just put out the fire, but leave the surfaces he hit littered with ice and snow too.

The blue dragon that started the fire had a long and relatively thin neck. Which was probably why when the half-dragon next swung his wings and lifted off, he made right for the elder dragon's throat and before the giant monster had any opportunity to react to his approach, sliced the bigger dragon's head clean off, leaving it to sag down and catch the brunt of the new pool of blood under it.

The golden one among the giants had a vaguely oval form, with its overgrown head making up the narrow end. Going by its angered roars, seeing its kin slain like that upset it. While it was still in the middle of its rage induced scream, the Dragonborn charged right into its mouh with his greatsword pointed to the front. It closed its mouth in surprise, but moments later, it collapsed and died. Now covered in blood all over, the Dragonborn carved his way through the back of its throat.

The victorious warrior stumbled forward to the slowly closing in doe and smiled proudly with his blood-soaked weapon buried into the ground. "Greetings, fair maiden. Pardon me while I make myself a little more presentable." He looked around, grabbed the first nearby barrels of water and tilted them over his head to shower himself in the water, one barrel at a time. With little regard what someone nearby might have planned to use them for. "I am the Dragonborn, at your service. And what is your name?"

"Noelle. It's good you came. I don't know what we would have done without you."

"Fending off dragons and collecting their souls has been my calling since time immemorial. Ever since mother moved on to new lands, I have not spent one waking hour not fighting the dragons tooth and nail. So when the gorge finally opened, of course I heeded your call. Dragons renew themselves all the time, but those suffering under their destructive nature, remain dead or injured for much longer, if not forever."

To gather with the others, a panda bear monster came along with dozens of excited children. She pointed at the Dragonborn. "Oh look, there he is!" And through her feigned surprise, sent the entire crowd of children out to swarm him.

"Fluffy dragon!"

"It's the fluffy dragon!" They surrounded him and stumbled over each other. They all wanted to touch and ruffle the patches of fur spread around his body.

The adult accompanying them followed them and once close enough, bowed before her saviour. "Thank you so much for coming to our aid. It was our little school you put out. We wouldn't have made it out if it weren't for you."

The Dragonborn needed time until the playful younglings' curiosity was sated and their insistent assault on him let up, so he could struggle free enough to meet their teacher. "All in a day's work. I could never let helpless folk like yourselves come to harm. Not if there's anything I can do to stop it. The corpses will be the signal. So long as I remain in this town, it is protected."

The teacher gestured towards the southern part of town. "Our school has a kitchen. The least we could do, is receive you with a cup of tea and a meal."

"Of course I wouldn't say no to some relaxation and provisions. Now is the time to recover after all. And to plan where to go from here. I was banished with them for a long time. I need to know what about the kingdom has changed in my absence. What these new denizens are."

As Ralsei and Dasher joined back together with Noelle, they were accompanied by a third, less expected follower. "Dragon!" It was the succubus Beauty. The soft and feminine spokesperson of the Susies. The well-kempt dragon girl appeared to have recovered after fainting at the sounds of Ralsei singing with no traces of dirt on her smooth white dress.

She meekly raised her hands and stood in place while the worked-up half-dragon pulled his weapon out of the ground. "I come in peace. I'm as terrified of the elder dragons as you are. I'm one of the nice ones!"

The Dragonborn held up his sword in her direction. "There are no nice dragons! Not that I'd remember."

"Times have changed!" She shouted in protest. "Not all dragons are evil anymore!"

The Dragonborn turned to Noelle and the others. "Is there truly such a thing? Dragons that can be trusted?"

Noelle smiled and watched the children that followed them, fight over who got to touch the 'fluffy dragon's wings. "We've met a few friendly ones on our way here. They helped us, too. I think you can trust her."

"The deer lass seems more trustworthy. If I have your word that well-intentioned dragons have become commonplace, then I shall allow the lady's presence - for now."

The school teacher and the Dragonborn led the way to the school. Past the cheering townsfolk that was thankful for their temporary reprieve. Noelle, Ralsei and Dasher followed from further behind and Beauty slowed down to walk along side the soon sweating doe. "Thank you for vouching for me. Who knows what he would have done if you hadn't."

"You - you're welcome."

"I suppose we are now even after that little trick you pulled on me and the others. I hope Temptress won't come back to haunt us over it."

"I'm sorry for the trouble."

"I understand why you did it, but still. You should feel ashamed for doing this to us." Hearing something like this come from Susie's voice made Noelle twitch.

On the side pointing to the charred fields in the south, the School had a big porch. The panda monster unlocked the gate and asked them all to take a seat while she rushed into the kitchen. The children swamped the Dragonborn with questions on what it was like to be a dragon or what it was like to fight them or what he could do besides fly, spit fire and spit ice.

He was very patient with them and still found time to ask the teacher about her life. And about the things that had changed in his absence. What happened to this or that person that the teacher didn't appear to remember.

Apparently this town had already existed in some form when he was banished. Also, the elder dragons weren't all banished at the same time, but in batches. Him being included in the final one. In conjunction with the times that preceded this, he kept bringing up his mother, another bipedal dragon by the name 'Mace'.

But all this was in the end, a distraction. A distraction from the impending, scaled reality that was building in the distance. And their next worry soon came trampling up the hill. A reptilian creature with eight necks so long, they reached as high as the town's clock tower and snake heads at the ends of them.

And when he saw it, the half-dragon dropped his cup and sprang up in place. "It appears our rest will not last!" The creature didn't come here on its own volition. Its heads were all on leashes made of familiar, dark purple clouds, which led up into the sky above it. There, a familiar woman with antlers came riding on the back of another dragon.

This one was as big as the giant dragons that attacked the town, except it looked able to walk on two legs. The serpentine dragon horns, the black wings and the up to scale tail were complemented by the physique of a bodybuilder bulging with muscles everywhere unlike even the Berserkers. It looked more like a demon than a dragon.

"The hydra is slave to the Destroyer! I must do battle!"

"Wait! Maybe we can help!" They were a little surprise with how fast the Dragonborn switched from relaxation to seeking out battle. The party got up to follow him, but they couldn't keep up with the insane dashes that the Dragonborn's wings made possible. By the time they were anywhere near the hydra's reach, the half-dragon was already carving and slicing his way up one of the necks. Most of its heads were preoccupied with reacting to the Dragonborn.

One of them shot down onto them and buried its snout in the ground where Ralsei was, just before he jumped to the side. Noelle seized the opportunity to wrap its throat in vines and hold it in place. From being this up close, the archer was able to take out one eye, and the prince enchanted his weapon to hit the serpent's face with several gunshots. They focused on dealing with that one head, summoning more vines and hitting it with more arrows and magic bullets, until it collapsed, along with the rest of its neck.

They were taken aback with how efficiently the Dragonborn was dealing with the rest of it. In the time it took them to take down one head, he jumped from head to head, impaling each one with his greatsword or cutting them off wholesale. When only one head was left, he jumped down to the ground, and with a single scream, let loose a wave of pressure so strong, it threw the entire creature back in spite of its weight. When the last head was still dizzy and confused as to what had happened to it, he charged towards it and cut it off.

The children crowded the area just in front of the porch and cheered at their victory. Beauty and their teacher came along with them, clapping all along the way. When Dasher looked back up to check on Temptress and the Destroyer, they were both gone. Grinding and creaking noises drew everyone's sight to the left-behind school building, which was being ripped out of its foundation by the black dragon.

It raised the building as if to use it to attack, and with a swing of its wings similar to how the Dragonborn dashed from place to place, it sped to the teacher and the oblivious children. It was all too far away for Noelle or anyone else to do something about it. He wasn't too far away for the Dragonborn. But even he couldn't do much more than to rush straight to where the civilians were. Right under the building that the Destroyer struck out to crush them with.

With a confident leap, he met the building half-way and with the force his movement gave him, had just enough strength to stop it from speeding down and crushing and killing all these bystanders. That didn't stop the Destroyer from pushing the building close enough to the ground for the Dragonborn to stand on it.

With a sheer supernatural strength, the half-dragon somehow managed to keep the school's foundation from hitting the ground. But this miracle took everything out of him. "Run! Run!" He shouted at them. They followed suit, they all ran off and out of harm's way. All except Beauty.

Those among the children that weren't in the building's impact any more, continued egging on the Dragonborn. "Come on! Fluffydragon! You can beat him!"

They even started cheering in unison while the teacher tried corralling them together and away from the battle. "Beat the dragon! Beat the dragon! Beat the dragon!"

The Dragonborn's arms and legs were so strained, he was trembling all over. And yet, he grinned. Under his gritted teeth, he mumbled. "You know what? I just might!"

"I'm sure you can do it." Beauty cooed at him with a mischievous grin.

The Dragonborn was surprised and confused at Beauty still standing next to him. "Wait! If this thing comes down it will crush you! Get out of here, what are you doing?"

The loosely dressed dragon girl snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. "What I'm doing? Why of course..." When she was done running her hands along his shape enough to distract him, she reached into a little tie inside her dress and pulled out a dagger. She held his chest with one hand, while she stabbed him in the back several times with the other. "...what I came here for!"

"Fluffy dragon! No!"

You could see his instant weakened state from how he allowed the building to budge down for a second. With the last stab, she left the dagger inside him and twisted it. The Dragonborn choked in-between coughing up blood. "Traitor! Murderer! The town - all these people!"

In a sudden hurry, the dragon girl backed away from under the school building and shrugged. "Not my problem. Sides were taken from the beginning. I was just doing what I was here to do."

Beneath the smiling succubus, a platform made of purple clouds appeared, and she seemed to expect it and stepped on it. It carried her up into the sky, onto the back of the Destroyer, to Temptress' side. Up above, the witch was already chuckling and then spoke loud enough for everyone below to hear her. "How on earth did you get them to trust you like this?"

"The oldest lie in the world. I sold them some bogus about 'not all dragons', would you believe they bought it, just like that?"

"No way!" They both broke into wild chattering laughter that sent cold shivers down Noelle's spine. "Destroyer! Finish this!"

With one final push, the black giant overpowered the Dragonborn and brought the school building down upon him. Burying him in its foundation, before flying away. No doubt set for the fountain. The forces between the two draconic combatants left the building crumbling and broken. Along half the area, the walls had already collapsed. "Fluffy dragon! We have to save the fluffy dragon!"

Some of the children were already crying and clinging to the panda monster holding them. Others had hope and rushed into the building to remove any wooden bars and planks that got in the way of them looking for the Dragonborn. Dasher followed them inside to push a few collapsed pillars aside.

Beneath a trap door, in the stone cellar, they found his remains buried under the heap of crudely cut stone bricks that once was the cellar's ceiling. There was no pulse. He spent his last moments trying to struggle his way out of the cellar, and got crushed by it before he could make it.

There was no other way to put it. There was nothing they could say to silence the crying children that wasn't a lie.

The Dragonborn was dead.


	30. Friends on the other side

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 18

Friends on the other Side

* * *

With little left to talk about, Kris' captivity became a little uneventful. It became an evened out rhythm of Axe checking on something around the house, and him using every opportunity he could to wiggle out of the ties that held him in place. Both of them didn't like being stuck here with nothing to do and nothing of value to say. And at least on Axe, it began to show when she ran out of 'poultry' sandwiches.

In hindsight, Kris would have preferred the silence over the loud knocking that interrupted it. "No way that's the Knight. Who is it now!" When she opened the door, two hulking berserkers stood on the other side, heaving from exhaustion and leaning onto the wall for support. "You two? Any news from Tempts?"

Considering how physically fit they were, they must have been running non-stop from an insane distance. "Yeah...yeah. She did the thing."

"Thi - wait , she found it?"

"Yep."

"We came here running for our lives. The other lightners tried to get in the way, but we found and released those other dragons anyway. They're like those snakes. Wild animals, all of them. They started out near a town, those townsfolk are gonna be either dead or fleeing to that other town."

That wasn't good. From the sounds of it, all hell was breaking loose and Noelle and the others were right in the middle of it. "So what about the other lightners."

She was only met with dismissal from her still stressed out visitors. "Hell if I know, we've been on the run ever since that happened. They were burning down the town when we left. They can fly and they're spreading everywhere. But I think we shook 'em now." Relieved over it as though it had only just occurred to her, the berserkers walked inside.

Their faces lit up when they saw Axe's captive. "Oh right! For a while there I forgot we got this guy." When the barbarian girls came closer, Axe made sure to follow them quickly and stand roughly between them and Kris.

He made sure not to show any emotion whatsoever, but used his feet to slowly back away from them. They picked up on it though and sure enough, one of them tipped his chair over with a kick and rested her foot on his chestplate. "Door's closed, we're all shacked up here and got him all to ourselves. Think of all the stuff we could do with him now."

Axe pushed them away. "No-one's 'doing stuff' with him until the Knight comes. We've got our orders. We've got him pinned so no-one's touching the human at this point."

One of the bigger dragon girls narrowed her eyes, tilted her head slightly and raised her finger at Axe. "Yeah, about that. Temptress actually said to kill'im. I mean we don't have to, she's gone a bit - coo-coo." She pointed one finger to her own head, spun it around and mimicked the sound of a cuckoo clock. "But it does mean we can do whatever we want with him. If the Knight asks what happened, we just say we tried to kill him like Temptress said and failed. That way neither of both can be mad at us."

Axe neither sounded nor looked particularly convinced of their idea. "Yeah, how about we don't do that and just stick to this: We keep him here. No-one touches the human, end of story."

A stare-off between the berserkers and Axe followed, in which neither made a move, but both sides seemed to consider a physical fight from the looks of it. In the end, the berserkers backed off, even if they didn't refrain from voicing their discontent. Even after they had left and slammed the door shut behind them, Axe paused.

She remained as tense as she was when they visited and stared at the door for some time before she sighed and went up to one of the windows to check if they were still there. When she was sure that they weren't, she pulled his chair back up and sat down at the table. He didn't pay attention to her, but he was startled when she rose her voice out of nowhere. "Hey! What're you looking at?" Not her for a start. He was looking out the window. At least as little as the angle he was sitting from allowed.

He didn't say anyting. And despite that, she continued talking to him. "Stop looking like that! What's wrong? Are you that worried about the other lightner?"

Slowly, he traced his gaze along the wall to her. "Yes?"

The groaned and sat back with her arms folded up. "Dude, she's gonna be fine. You were dropped in the ocean - lived through that - goody-two-shoes sent a big flood and a whole lot of other stuff - you lived through that, and now she's been through a plane crash and still kicking. A few dragons aren't gonna kill her."

"I was there with all that other stuff."

"Still." Kris said nothing. He held onto the knowledge that he could always go back to before they boarded the 'Chariot' to begin with. Axe on the other hand was increasingly restless. She began shuffling around. Shifting about on her chair in hopes of getting in a more comfortable position.

For quite some time, the only thing Kris could hear in this otherwise silent building, was just that. The sounds of this darkner shuffling around and Susie's voice occasionally grumbling. Eventually she let out an audibly upset groan. "Okay, fine, be that way. We'll follow your friends north. That's where they'll be going. But you're not free to go wherever."

He was mostly confused about her sudden change of heart. "I didn't even say anything."

"You - " She stopped and looked away for a moment. "It's not just you it's - if there's flying dragons spreading out and setting stuff on fire, maybe keeping you in a wooden house isn't such a good idea."

That only brought up more questions in his mind. For instance: "Didn't you plan on freeing those elder dragons from the start?"

"Well - trying, duh, but I didn't think she'd actually find them. I thought Tempts would just look for them, not find them and then calm down and go back to what the Knight said to do. Instead it sounds more like she's more out there than I thought." She got up and began untying him from the chair. That was, excluding his wrists which she tied together again. She cut off enough rope to have a bit of a leash to hold him by.

Then she picked up her scythe, gave him his bag back and led him outside. "If Tempts said to kill you, then we've got big dragons setting stuff on fire on one side, and the other girls being sent to take you out on the other. Don't think any of them are actually gonna try to do it, but it's better to be on the safe side. This house - it's made of wood and it's the exact place every succubus is gonna go to when looking for you. It's safer if we're on the move and I just keep an eye on you on the way. Plus, you get to chase after antler-girl. That's what you want, right?"

Well, yes. But at this point he was pretty sure he was going to turn things back to before they got on the plane either way. But if there was a chance that he wouldn't have to, he couldn't reject this opportunity. He was taken by surprise all over again when he was dragged into the cold outside. For the first few minutes, it was a relaxing walk through the blue grass. Along the coast towards what Kris assumed was the north.

Then they took a clear turn to the left. Not completely, but enough to alter their course drastically, and it was accompanied by Axe speeding up their pace to a tense march. Where were they going? He wasn't so sure any more. But it was clear that she had some path or destination in mind. The widely uneven hills of the Kingdom of Heaven obscured most of the things that lay far in the north. But the further they went, the more of the middle or lower parts of that enormous tower in the distance Kris could see and the more aware he became of how tall it actually was.

They must have marched for more than a few miles by the time Axe stopped. When she did, it was sudden and out of nowhere, and for a solid ten seconds, she neither turned around nor said anything. "We're being followed. Come on, let's hurry. It's not far anymore." So there was some destination they were headed for. Sure enough not long later, he actually saw it. A little patch of land flattened to make way for a little free area to walk around, in front of a large barn with all its hatches and windows closed.

Unlike what was envisioned when it was drawn though, it stood alone. It was just a barn in the middle of the empty grassland. No homestead, no farm, nothing around it. "There we are." With him in tow, she carefully approached the building from the side. They snuck along the wall to then jump out to face the dark interior head-on, along with whatever or whoever was inside it. "False alarm." It was empty. No-one was here. There weren't even any animals in the enclosures, just piles of hay.

Even searching the hay to be sure they weren't camouflage revealed that they were just that, piles of hay. "I'd say that makes for a better hideout. As long as we stay near the exit, any elder dragons won't be more of a problem than in the other place."

From here on in, they stayed right beneath the front entrance. With Axe peeking around the corner to where they were coming from. She was convinced they were being followed for some reason. Strangely enough, it turned out she was right. Kris eventually saw someone running towards them. It was one of the two Berserkers from earlier and when she made it to the earthen patch where the grass ended, she stopped and collapsed onto her knees.

Visibly exhausted from running ridiculous stretches. Her hair was messy and her face had an expression that he didn't expect or recognize as one of Susie's. He did remember Susie looking like that from time to time, but very rarely and he wasn't sure what the context each time was. "Come - come out! I know you're there somewhere!" Still holding the leash, Axe stepped outside. "Hand over the human!"

"I said it before. No-one touches the human."

"We've got to take him out!"

"Out of the question. 'zerks always come in pairs. Where's your partner?"

"Temptress isn't playing around! She killed her. She killed her and she's not bringing her back. And if I don't take him out, I'm next! It's him or me! She's gonna kill all of us if we don't."

"The Knight moves way faster and is much more powerful than her. If we so much as scratch him, there'll be no place we can hide."

It was fear. The Berserker was disturbed and terrified of what she saw happen to the other one. With shaky hands, she raised her broadsword. "I'm going to take my chances!" She attacked Axe, who brought up the upper side of her scythe to push away the sword by its guard. With a concise kick to the stomach, she pushed the Berserker back. While her opponent was still staggered, she brought down her scythe with the pointy end aimed right at the hulk's right shoulder and buried its tip into the Berserker's side.

But she didn't bury it too deeply, and within a moment's notice, the Berserker reached for the scythe, pulled it out, ripped it out of Axe's grip and threw it away. When it slipped out of her hand, so did the rope holding Kris. His chance to run away. But that Berserker was out to kill Axe - and him. And she was clearly stronger than Axe.

With a single punch to her snout, she sent Axe stumbling backwards several steps. And as expected, the very next thing she did with this window of opportunity, was to raise her sword with both hands and strike down at her. Carving through Axe's jacket and deep into her side. Kris dashed past the Berserker, summoned his sword, rammed it into the back of one of the hulking dragon's legs and used it as a stepping stone to jump up at her. He used the right side of her neck as leverage to hold onto her.

He dispelled his sword, summoned it back into his hands and pressed it against the dragon's throat. When she reached for him, he raised his feet to push himself back and away from her as strongly as he could, digging deeper and deeper into her neck as he did.

She managed to grab hold of one of his arms, but not for long enough before she passed out. Slitting someone's throat open so deeply would have been fatal for a human in the light world. The blood loss alone would have been too much. No wonder that she lost consciousness.

Strangely enough, Axe had fallen onto the ground, but she was still conscious. It took her a while to register what had just happened. "You're still here and you - " She had to take a moment to wipe the blood off the nostril the 'zerk had struck. "Sheesh. I didn't think you'd have that in you."

She tried getting up, but the blood loss from that wound she had in her shoulder had weakened her too much. Kris tried to help her up, but he wasn't as tall as her, so this could only go so far. "Look, dude. You don't have to do this. You can run away if you want. Your friends are likely gonna be on their way to Carpentown. That's thataway." She pointed in a direction opposite from the one they came here from. Presumably north.

He wasn't so sure about it. Her voice had turned more hoarse and he could hear her having trouble breathing. He tried to lead her inside the barn, but she pulled the other way. "Nope. If she gets up, she's gonna go for it right again." They went to pick up her scythe and then went to the the motionless Berserker.

First, she cut open the ties holding Kris' hands together. Then she began slashing the other dragon's throat again and again until her head was off. She just wanted to be sure that the Berserker was dead and wouldn't soon get up to kill them again. After that, he carried her inside the barn and didn't stop until he was in position to drop her onto a haystack.

"You can go. Join your friends. Leave me here." Every time she spoke, she sounded weaker.

He froze in place. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." She wasn't even keeping her eyes open anymore.

"You don't sound fine."

"Yeah, sure. As if you could tell." He opened his bag to offer her some of one of his chocolate cakes. "Nah thanks. I don't like chocolate anyway."

"It would help."

"Us darkners can recover from a lot. But you know what? It can't hurt." The moment she put it in her mouth she winced. "Aww, disgusting. But hey, thanks. Now off you go." He didn't move. "What?"

"Are you sure I can just leave you like this?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, just go."

"You know, you could come with me"

She winced due to a sudden surge of pain. Covering the wound on her shoulder didn't really work to stop the blood loss. "And why would I do that?"

"So you could - you know the Knight and Temptress are giving you opposite orders. If you still follow the Knight, I think he'd want you to help stop her."

Axe stared at him with her eyes closing almost all the way. "Wait a second, since when do you care what the Knight wants? I don't know what you're really on about."

"I really wanted to take you along."

Axe sighed. "Okay, sure. Here's the deal. I'll get better. And when I do, I'll catch up and join you. How about that?"

For a moment, he pushed the gate aside, but then he stopped and turned to her again. "I don't think that's going to work. Even if you show up, I won't know it's you."

"Why?"

"There's a lot of Grunts, that's because I've drawn regular Susie a lot. But I've only made one 'Berserker' drawing and there's a lot of them anyway. And the same goes for 'Mistress' and there's at least two of those as well. So one drawing in the light world can mean several Susies of that type. What if you're the same? What if there's more than one 'Axe'?"

Axe rolled her eyes. "No, there's just one of me."

"You don't know that. Maybe you just never met the others."

"Even if, what do you plan on doing about that?"

"If we meet again, I have no way of knowing it's you."

"Even if there was more of 'me', what difference would it make if it's me or another one?" He said nothing in response to it. He just rummaged through his bag until he found what he was looking for. The white ribbon that was replaced with that Christmas hat they got for Noelle was still in his bag. "The hell's that supposed to be?" He bound it into a neat bow and then came closer to Axe to bind it to a lock of her hair. "The fuck do you think you're doing? What is this?"

"Now I'll know it's you when I see you again." Axe brought the ribbon closer to one of her eyes to see what exactly it was he attached to her hair. He didn't make it far out before he turned back again though. "You will follow me, right?"

"Of course. It's my job, remember?"

"Is it a promise?"

"Pinky swear, now go! Join your friends. Who knows what's up in that other town."

Even now, he was a little anxious to just leave her like this. But this time, he did. He made his way north, until he could see the lighted buildings in the distance and followed them from there.

When she was sure that he was gone, Axe sighed with relief, rolled over and relaxed. She was bluffing. The wound itself wasn't going to kill her, but even if they had hidden the 'zerk's body, any other succubi that came through here were inevitably going to figure out roughly what had happened and finish her off. She wasn't afraid of what the Knight would do to her for letting Kris escape, because as far as she could tell, she was going to die here long before his arrival.

But after what that crazy bitch Temptress betrayed her and the Knight like this, the least she could do to get back at her was to let the human loose and hope he'd give Temptress some payback by denying her this throne she was after. After all, it wasn't like she could stop him in her state if he wanted to go.

At least from beyond the grave, through him, she could have some form of revenge.

* * *

Noelle and the others didn't know what to do. For as long as this town had existed, it had always relied on the Dragonborn for protection in the event of the elder dragons breaking out. But the Dragonborn was no more and the swarm of dragons in the distance wasn't going to get any smaller. "Come on! move, we have to evacuate this place!" Dasher tried to rally all the inhabitants to get them to gather on the northern side.

The emperor and his subjects had little investment in this place, so they followed without an issue. But the townsfolk that had always been here wasn't so cooperative. Many had reservations. "We can't just up and leave everything." one of the monster-looking darkners countered. "This is all we have. We leave it behind, we have nothing."

"Then carry what you can, but if you don't leave the rest behind, you will lose it along with your lives when the dragons arrive."

"Why don't you just say goodbye to everything you have to your name then!"

After spreading out one more time to cover more ground, Noelle, Dasher and Ralsei gathered again. "It's no use, they won't go." They've been trying to get the townsfolk to move several times now. To no avail.

This time though, a goatman came running their way along the main road from the north of town. "Dasher! The Emperor requests that you three come to our rally point at once!"

They followed him, but he didn't lead them to the emperor. Instead, he led them right past all the troops and workers waiting to escort the locals. North of the rally point, past all the acres, on the untouched blue grass, a single figure awaited them in the distance. In the middle of the windy fields, a familiar black Boss Monster, completely undressed exempting the white bow tie attached to his neck, sat upon a throne covered by a white cloth.

With a grin on his face, Donatien Alphonse, also known the Sinwielder rested his head on his right hand, supporting himself on the right lean of his throne. And watched the three of them come closer.

The page left the heroes half-way through. And as soon as they were in hearing range, the devil spoke up. "If it isn't the lightners - or should I say, the girl with antlers and what little is left of the heroes?"

Given the situation, the archer had little patience for the devil's antics. "We don't have any time to spare."

"Oh, Dashieboy. Do you have to make things so dramatic? Don't pretend like you're going anywhere right now."

"Even if, if you came all the way out here, you did so for a reason."

"I have no need to take this accusatory tone from you. Can't a concerned man check on his patients once in a while?"

"Not if it means crossing an ocean for no other reason."

The devil shrugged. "Fair point. I chanced an empty guess that you would run into trouble sooner or later, and it appears I was right. Our friends already filled me in. The unwillingness to part with one's material belongings. I didn't expect greed to be what a settlement so in tune with nature ultimately falls victim to. But alas, if they refuse to move, let them burn."

"You know we can't just leave them to die."

The smooth, calculated gestures and that neverending smile gave Noelle the impression that Donnie was enjoying this. "Ah ah ah, you want to live. You should take that and be happy with it. But no, you want more. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to survive AND bring along these strangers. But you see, you lack the means. This puts you in a weak position. Concessions will have to be made for you to get what you desire."

"What do you want?"

Noelle didn't believe the grin on the devil's face could get any wider, but it did. "Now you're asking the right questions." Donnie sat up properly, and in a slow and elaborate motion, kept his elbow on his right lean, but turned it upright and finally snipped his fingers. When he did, fires broke out behind him in an enormous, but even pattern.

When the fires stopped a few seconds later, they left behind ten long rows of chariots, large and all equipped with well-kept horses in perfect condition to pull their respective chariots and carts and then some. And around and behind them, more fires broke out only to vanish and leave behind more chariots and more horses.

By the end of it, the Sinwielder answered: "I offer you a chariot for every household, and for every three or four of our own men. And another four for our Emperor, his entourage and you."

"And what do you want in return?"

The devil clapped his hands. When he did, his throne took it as its cue to shift about and turn into a little couch so he could lean down sideways across its width. "Oh nothing major. It is completely free. I just want two things. One: I get to say what path to Carpentown we take. Two: Me and the lightner girl get to talk to each other for the full duration of our trip."

Dasher was standing closer to the Sinwielder, and looked back at Noelle to check for her reaction. "I - uhm."

Before he had any chance to make a decision on Noelle's behalf, he was cut off. "BUT - BUT - you must understand. By its nature, this is a deal only she can make."

She wasn't so sure about this. It seemed a little too good to be true. What exactly did he plan to talk about? Then again, he was an eccentric man, and she was the only girl in the group, maybe he was just lonely. But last time they trusted him, he lured them into an ambush. "This...this is a trick isn't it? You're not going to take us there are you?"

"Of course I will." He leaned forward and offered her a handshake. "We get to talk, and in exchange, you get all these chariots, and will all be delivered to carpentown. Alive and well. You will all arrive in one piece. That is part of the agreement."

She looked to Dasher for assurance one more time. "He's serious about his deals. If he agrees on a condition as part of a deal, he will honor it."

All right. Something about this deal scared her. It terrified her. She just knew there had to be some catch. She could feel it. She really didn't feel like touching that black hand with a ten foot pole. But to save those townspeople, she had to make it. She tensed up and braced herself. She just had to rip that band aid off so they could get away from here fast enough. She reached out and before she knew what was happening, it was already over. "Very nice."

He clapped his hands and got up. The cloth covering the sofa threw itself off, and as expected, it was a group of human women that wore as little as he did. Like before, instead of a bow tie, their sole 'article of clothing' was a mirror each of them had strapped to her body.

His servants broke formation and climbed to the fronts of a few chariots in groups of two. They led them past the three of them and came back with a huge crowd in tow. Goatfolk, Ironfolk, the Emperor, everyone. And now, the monsters that lived here were coming along heavily loaded with their belongings as well.

Soon everyone had their places on the many carriages set. The emperor was given a special, golden riksha steered by a human with blue skin. As per their deal, Dasher and Ralsei got to share a carriage not far off, but Noelle was to take a seat alone on one of the open air carriages with Sinwielder. The only other two people on it were two of his concubines who were busy steering it.

"So what did you want to talk to me about, actually?"

"Oh, anything and everything. Whatever may be on your mind. How has the dark world been treating you?"

Her fear of what he could have been up to still made this awkward, but already now he was making her laugh. "I wouldn't even know where to start. It...I was completely overwhelmed. I mean Kris helped me understand how it worked, but it was a little much to take in. All these strange places I've never seen and yet, so many of them felt familiar."

"Does this seem familiar?"

"What?"

"You and me, talking? You telling me about your life?"

She wasn't sure what he was getting at and raised an eyebrow. "No?"

The devil shrugged it off as if he had half expected this answer. "Oh don't worry. Do go on."

"So getting through wasn't always easy. There's the dragons of course...it took a long time to get used to how they all look like Susie - A classmate of ours. I was really disappointed in - in Kris. To think that we spent so much time together, and yet he never told me about all of this. I thought he trusted me. Oh goodness...now that I think about it. When I asked him all of these things about Susie...I trusted him. I didn't make any efforts to - I mean..."

"Mean what?"

"Nevermind. I -" She got careless and almost said something she felt she would regret. Something about him just tickled the words out of you.

When she looked up from the wooden platform they had their feet on, she found this black Asriel-lookalike looking at her. With a stare that dug through her eyes, deep into her soul. "Go on. Mean what?"

She couldn't help but notice the cold tone in his voice and the sudden absence of motion in him. She shuffled off to the side to gain a little distance from him. "I mean...it's..." She paused and pulled her legs in to retreat as much into her robe as she could. "

"When you asked him about Susie, you didn't make any efforts to - what? I fail to make any rhyme or reason of this, but am eager to do so."

The more she felt tempted to answer, the more a crippling anxiousness clasped at her chest from the inside. She tried to tell him, but only a gulp came out the first time round. So she tried going about this a little slower. "I don't think he'd - can you keep a secret?"

"Sure. You are not beyond hope like us, so confidentiality applies. Everything you and I say - or do - will be strictly between us."

She was terrified to talk about this. She didn't ever back at home. Not with anyone other than her dad and maybe Kris. But she also remembered something Kris said early on: What happened in the dark world, stayed in the dark world. As long as this person didn't immediately run to Kris to tell him what she basically already told him, no-one would know. That thought was what she could latch onto. She focused it and after pulling herself together one more time, she leaned closer and whispered it to him: "I like Susie."

"Like as in..."

"...yes..."

"Ah, I see how it is. I sort of expected something like this."

"That's - I told Kris, more or less. The kinds of things I told and asked him - any other person would know. I didn't try to hide it from him. So he knows. He was so talkative all of a sudden, too. But if all these Susies are drawings he spent time looking at her and - oh god...what does he think of me now?"

"Not very nice things - is my guess."

"Hey! Don't be so judgmental."

The devil had to giggle so much, it completely broke his stance. "Ah, darling, the only people so eager to discourage judgment, are those who have already deemed themselves guilty."

"I mean - I'd be the last person that needs to be judged. This Ralsei person that follows Kris everywhere isn't any better. Kris was always a bit difficult, but whatever is going on with those Susies isn't normal. And there must have been something Dasher could do to keep Temptress."

The Sinwielder wagged his finger at her. "Ah, ah, ah. You never saw them interact when they were still an item, you have no frame of reference. You, young lady, are projecting. What I want to know is: What from? Go back to that very thing you said: 'There must have been something Dasher could do to keep Temptress.' What exactly did you have in mind?"

"It's - uh - " She wasn't sure what to say.

"Well?"

"It doesn't matter. It's in the past."

She avoided looking at him, but the devil just bent to the side to reach back into her field of view. "Is it in the past, or are you trying to put something behind you that doesn't belong behind you? Does it need to be behind you in the first place? Or is it merely the uncertainty that you find uncomfortable?"

She didn't want to look him in the eye, she tried to look away. But he made great efforts to maintain eye contact. And after a few moments of silence and this uncomfortable back and forth, the sinwielder pointed his finger right at her. "Ah, there it is. That look I was expecting. That knowing look of guilt, mixed with resentment towards whichever rule or convention you're breaking."

She twitched at hearing that. She couldn't withhold the frown it put on her face. "Those are old rules anyway." And this time, she looked so far off to the side, the devil couldn't just wind himself sideways to follow her eyes. "Who needs them?"

Sinwielder raised that finger and wagged it at her. And shook his head in the same motion. "Oh, not so aloof, young lady. Lighty-lighty-lighty-lighty-lightners. You never ask the right questions, do you?" She really didn't want to talk to him at this point, so she tugged at the outside layer of her robe to wrap it more tightly around herself.

"Those pesky 'old rules', why exactly are they old? Were they invented just a few decades ago and foist upon you by mere chance? Or could it be more than mere chance? What if all ideas have been had before, and the 'old' ones, are the good ones, because people who live by them, last. What if other ideas had been around for a long time, but are merely not 'old' in the sense that they always perished not long after being conceived?"

And he kept hammering on about it. It made her downright angry. "What are you trying to say anyway?"

"I'm saying that there is merit to those pesky little rules. Forego morality. Abiding them is nothing less than good decisionmaking. You don't abide them to serve a higher order. You do it to make the higher order serve you. Think of it less of a pastor reading his scripture, more of a friend, telling you not to jump off a cliff. Of course, if you want to ignore your friend's warnings and do it, no-one can stop you. But chances are, there were others before you who had similar ideas, and you don't know about them for a very. Good. Reason. Those who stayed away from the cliff survived and lived on to make not jumping a tradition, whereas those who jumped, were lost and forgotten."

Now, he leaned back and tilted his head, giving her a dismissive look. "In the end, if you want to hold yourself back by escaping into short-term indulgences, I won't stop you. All I offer, is a chance at a little introspection." He clapped his hands and spoke up to signal that he was referring to one of the women steering their carriage. "Lust! Mirror please." The concubine on the left loosened the band holding in place the only object that covered her back.

With a proud smile, the devil presented the mirror to Noelle. "Why don't you take a look?" She did. But she didn't see anything special in it. It was just herself, with her unusual colour and her hat in place as it was supposed to be. "What do you see?"

"Nothing special."

That appeared to surprise Donnie. He inspected it and then handed it back to its owner. "Hm...all right. Not entirely unexpected." He clapped his hands again. "Pride. Mirror please." The other woman handed him her mirror and he had Noelle look into it as well. "What do you see?"

"It's just me."

The startled Boss Monster raised his eyebrows. "What? Well this is...not lust, not pride...oh no. Oh you are one messed up little girl aren't you?" He turned around and tipped at the two women in the front. He gestured to their left and they followed suit. They steered the horses to another carriage. There, the Sinwielder requested one more mirror. "Sloth, mirror please. Now then. Take a deep look in this mirror. Do you see anything...unusual?"

For a moment, she thought she saw her own eyes flash up within the mirror, so she grabbed it by herself to look more closely. All she could look at, was her own, clueless, dumbstruck-looking face. What was she even doing? Wandering about lacking all confidence to think things through? No wonder Kris of all people had to take charge and look after her for so long. But now he was gone and she had to learn to think for herself.

So many things were so clear to her all of a sudden, the moment she looked into that mirror.


	31. Enjoy your Stay

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 19

Enjoy your Stay

* * *

It was all so clear now. All her life, Noelle did her best to be what others wanted her to be. A good, well-educated girl with self-restraint. All her life, she skittishly stepped through the world terrified of moving in any direction too fast or too far. She could feel how blind she used to be now.

It took a gaze into the devil's mirror for her to take a step back and examine her situation with a clear mind. Why would what anyone else thought or wanted matter. What mattered was that she got what she felt like having. And that was Susie.

With a mind cleared from all doubts, she had much less trouble pulling through in the dark world. They soon joined together with Kris and with Noelle's newfound confidence, they made it through the rest of the journey home easily.

And settled back in the light world, with no similar misadventures in sight, she approached Susie and asked her out. Now that Noelle was no longer scared, the dragon's recurring drawn-out silence came across to her as more socially awkward than menacing. She wasn't sure whether Susie was fully aware of what Noelle was proposing when she asked her to go to the movies together. She was likely luring Susie into something she didn't bargain for.

But Noelle didn't care. She couldn't fathom her luck. The moment that conversation was done, everything around her seemed more pleasant than otherwise. Quirks and repeated conversations in class felt less tedious, the sun seemed to shine brighter when she walked outside.

Her worries that Susie would forget or otherwise ghost her proved unfounded. They had a wonderful evening and while nothing more happened that evening, she could feel the sparks between them. And it didn't stop there either. They began going out regularly, and before Noelle knew, Susie too wanted to be more than just friends. Everything was exactly as she wanted it.

Noelle's life wasn't perfect. At least it didn't stay perfect for long. For reasons unrelated to Susie, that Noelle avoided thinking about too much, she was soon left without a place to sleep.

She would have defaulted to asking Kris and Toriel to move in with them, but for some reason, ever since she and Susie got together, all that newfound sociability Kris showed in the dark world was gone. In fact, he reclused even further and wound up avoiding talking to anyone. He continued his hobby, but somehow, over time, all Noelle saw was a figure keeping to itself in the corners and shadows of whichever place he resided in.

So asking to live in one room with him was out of the question. Besides, it would have gotten in the way of Noelle and Susie's relationship. They tried both staying at Susie's place, but her life wasn't perfect either.

After a heated exchange with her mother over money and living costs, the entire apartment was covered in dragonfire and spending their lives in its charred ruins was no longer an option either. They were lucky that the impact fell back on Susie's mother and not her. So they just did what they should have done from the get-go. They signed on to collect welfare and were given a tiny apartment in the brick towers north of the school.

They spent more and more of their time in their forever-empty love nest, and less and less outside. Noelle left all her previous hobbies and interests behind. No more games, no more cards, no more books, no more fantasy lore or foreign folklore. There was only her and Susie now. Nothing mattered. They had each other, that was all that mattered. Noelle finally had a strong arm to hang onto, that wouldn't just get sick and pass away.

As the weeks and months passed, the contentment showed in several ways. There was no reason to stay in shape. She had Susie now and Susie wouldn't judge her for gaining weight as long as she didn't judge Susie for it. They were both isolated from anyone that cared about work or grades, so her grades slumped down to Susie's and Kris' level and eventually below that.

But even early on in their relationship, it was clear that Susie was more aware of how Kris was shutting off than Noelle was. Oftentimes at school, when they passed by whichever nook or cranny he had secluded himself in, Susie stopped and looked his way. The first few times, it was just a glance. A moment's hesitation. Seeing him made Susie think about something. Each time, the mere thought of Susie having thoughts she didn't share with Noelle made Noelle nervous.

Nervous enough for Noelle to reflexively grab Susie by the elbow and pull her away from Kris and whatever she was thinking. But little by little, those momentary glances became longing, melancholic stares and the further that progressed, the less willing Susie was to let Noelle just drag her around like that. What made it feel insulting to Noelle, was that whenever asked what those moments were about, Susie would just dismiss it and pretend they didn't happen.

But the worst part about it, was the timing. Those stares, those wordless encounters between Kris and Susie - the way they were more and more drawn-out coincided with how the novelty of Noelle's and Susie's relationship wore off. What she thought was the magic of young love, waned as quickly as it had first appeared.

Almost immediately after they became fully intimate with each other for the first time, that passion wore off really fast. Less time was spent in each other's arms, more time was spent laying about in their apartment, still isolated from the outside world outside school hours, but now isolated from each other as well.

Noelle hoped that with the years this would change. It didn't. Throughout the rest of school it didn't and afterwards, this crushing sensation didn't get better. Neither Noelle nor Susie bothered with college. They had the checks they needed, they had each other Noelle didn't keep any of her old hobbies and interests other than 'having' Susie anyway. Noelle's big hope was that with Kris and Berdly off to university, this feeling Susie obviously had would go away.

Not only did it not go away, Noelle felt it, too. It felt as if something was missing in their lives. Something very, very important, something they didn't want to lose out on. They wanted to feel loved, but somehow, they didn't.

But they had to, right? They had each other after all. Who needed Kris or Berdly, right? The more this feeling crept up on Noelle, the more she tried to distract herself the only way she knew how. By trying harder and harder to reignite her and Susie's relationship.

Even going as far as accosting her for looking at some guy through the window and forcing Susie to pick their physical intimacy back up. She usually did it just by pressuring her into it, but eventually, she resorted to forcing herself onto her physically, as far as it was possible for a meek deer with a strong girl like that. In those instances she relied more on Susie's unwillingness to injure her than on her own strength.

Looking back, she was in a bit of a rush to get overly physical for their age from the get-go. Driven by an uneasy anxiety that Noelle preferred not to spend too much time thinking about. Which was why it took her a long time to get through to realizing that all of it wasn't nearly as great and fulfilling as she had promised herself it would be. Back when all this started.

Back when she and Kris traveled through the dark world. Whenever a more subtle gesture didn't give her the happiness she expected, she hoped overcompensating would do the trick. That was the thought she always had, she just avoided verbalizing it for years.

Maybe she should have sooner.

Kris going to university wasn't permanent. During select times including the holidays, he came home. On one of those snowed in winter days on the path to Christmas, Noelle and Susie stumbled upon him. Noelle was dragging Susie by the wrist to the bus stop. He and Asriel shared a car, but apparently, Asriel needed it for something else.

Counter to her expectation, once, in over half a year, they got to see Kris. And Noelle didn't feel like talking to him at all. She did at first, but seeing Susie's more eager reaction dispelled any familial nostalgia in an instant.

The stubborn dragon was as disinterested in Christmas and gift-giving as she was with everything. "Hey!" But when they came by the area in front of the bench Kris sat on, it was Susie that pulled towards him. Not strongly enough to break free from Noelle's grip, but enough to move to him regardless.

Kris was startled when he looked up to find his old high school friend approach him. "...hey."

Several seconds passed, with Susie and Kris just staring at each other and Noelle staying in place. Awkward seconds. Susie was clearly thinking about what to say and whether to say anything. "S - So...you were in college, right?" He nodded. "So how's college. Is it - is it nice?"

Kris lowered his head again. "It's okay...I guess."

At this point, Noelle stepped in and wrapped her arm around Susie's upper arm to leverage enough force to pull her a step or two away from Kris again. Bringing their slow conversation to a halt. She didn't say a word to him herself. Susie and Kris so much as talking to each other made her very, very uncomfortable. Too uncomfortable to say something at this point.

When the bus did arrive, Kris went to the very back. And once inside, nothing Noelle did could force Susie to sit anywhere other than right next to him.

But it seemed any worries on her part were unfounded. The entire first half of their trip to the city was completely quiet. Only when the green grass ceased and the concrete to all sides began, did Kris pick up where they left off. "So...what were you two doing while I was in college."

Noelle already reached around Susie's neck in preparation to pull her into a hug and answer with emphasis on how busy and content they definitely were, but Susie seemed to anticipate it and spoke up loudly enough to shut her up. "Nothing. I mean, nothing really, just sorta...hanging around."

"Really?"

"Yeah?"

They spent more time watching the streets pass by. "I mean...if you aren't doing anything...I'm still here for a few days. We could do something. What about the movies? We could go to the movies."

Even if she didn't say anything, Noelle could see in her eyes the desire to agree to hang out. She didn't like the thought of Susie hanging out with Kris and her no-where around to keep an eye on Susie. What he might do. So for showing interest even if with her face only, Noelle shot her a scolding glare.

Usually, this would have been enough to deter her from showing interest in interacting with any guys in their surroundings. This time, it wasn't. "Sure. Why not? What kind of movie were you thinking?"

What kind of movie it was or what theatre they were going to, didn't matter. Susie had agreed to it, and even though Noelle never outright said that this was grounds for another fight at home, that inevitable fight happened that evening. "So what if me and Kris are watching a movie?" When it happened, Susie sat back in her corner, almost itching to claw at Noelle.

"You don't know what he's going to do if you two are alone!"

"We'll be in a room full of people, give it a rest! Besides, what do you think he's gonna do?"

"You know..." She grabbed Susie by the arm with as much force as she had in her hands. "You have to make it clear to him that you're into girls only! You understand?"

Susie lowered her head to stare at Noelle from the top her eyes. "Really now? Kris? We talking about the same Kris? I don't remember him as the flirty, oncoming type."

"He's a guy! They all only want one thing! Please, don't go. Just ghost him! He'll understand."

"If I want to go to the movies, I'll go to the movies!" Her outburst ended their back and forth. They spent the rest of the day as they did all the previous ones. Quietly, not doing anything and waiting for the day to go by. But the next morning was already the day Susie had agreed to go to the movies with Kris, so Noelle got up, went over to the couch and laid down next to her. She held Susie's arm and mumbled. "Please don't go." She spent the entire morning and noon like this. Holding onto Susie. Continuously asking her not to go.

Even when the time came when she had to go to meet up, Noelle clung to her, trying to hold her in place when she was about to go. "Don't go..." At some point, Susie tried to pull away to head for the door, and Noelle strengthened her efforts in keeping her in place. "Please...I don't know what I'd do to myself if you go."

When Susie was half out the door, she finally stopped and let Noelle drag her back inside. She just sat on the couch with her. Refusing to look at her. And stayed like this. She ghosted Kris. They didn't even call him to call it off.

Kris took the hint, and didn't bother the two of them any more. He went back to university without having spent time together with Susie, nor Noelle.

From there on in, Susie zoned out more often, spent more time staring out the window. Zoning out, spending a lot of time thinking about something that wasn't Noelle. When they came back from grocery shopping, she insisted that they take a detour to Mrs. Dreemurr's to ask how Kris has been. Or if he was there. But at some point even she didn't have a lot to answer here. Kris called home less and less often.

After a few more months, only one month into the summer semester, things changed. Police from other districts got more presence, all to contact the Dreemurrs, and word of the reason spread like wildfire. Asriel came home at once as he found out.

Kris had jumped off the roof of a ten-story building. There wasn't even grounds to take him to the hospital. The half of his body that was still recognizable was unrecoverable, whether by magic, or by medicine.

His suicide note read nothing but "I'm so sorry Mom, I'm so sorry Dad, I'm so sorry Asriel. I know you all only did your best to make a life possible. But I just don't feel like there's anything for it. There's no reason. Nothing to live for. When I was at home, for a brief moment, I felt like there was. But I don't..."

Those last two sentences were scrawled out. His handwriting towards it was getting worse and worse anyway. When next Susie sat at the window to stare outside, she didn't. She pulled her legs back and hid her face behind them. And trembled every step of the way. "Susie? Susie what's wrong?" She knew this was about Kris, but she didn't expect this to affect Susie like this. "What's..."

"He's not coming back. He's not coming back." Susie stayed the way she was, curled together, and began to sob. "That's just it. No second chance." More than any laughter they had had in their time together, the crying was contagious. Before Noelle knew what was happening, she and Susie sat on the couch, holding onto each other, crying over Kris' loss for hours.

Susie tolerated Noelle's closeness, but they didn't bond over it. She blamed Noelle for it and she could feel it. As the days passed from here on in, occasionally, Susie would head for the door. Whenever she did, Noelle was quick to follow and insist that she came along wherever the otherwise quiet dragon went.

That was, until one night, when Susie thought she was sleeping, Noelle caught her trying to sneak out through the door. The doe was shocked, sprang up and rushed to grab hold of her again. "Where are you going?"

"Uh...outside?"

"I - I'll come along."

Now, with a much more cold expression, Susie fixated Noelle's eyes and then shook her head. "No. No you're not."

"Wait - wait! Don't go..." Bad wording. Those two words alone struck a chord and had Susie snarl at her. "Please...don't leave. Don't leave me alone! Being left alone would be crushing!"

"Same difference. Now let go."

Noelle was clinging to Susie's arm, even all the way to the stairs. Still trying to drag Susie back into the apartment. Susie just froze, and with a calm tone, asked her: "Let go."

"No..."

Then the turned around at Noelle and roared with enough force that Noelle felt it. "LET GO!" She didn't answer, but she didn't let go either. "If you don't let go, I'm going to burn you 'till you do." She wasn't. Not if anything of their love was left. Susie waited for almost half a minute. Half a minute was the time Noelle had to let go of her. And when it passed, finally, Susie pulled herself free with enough strength to get it done. "I said let go!"

She tried to go downstairs, but Noelle immediately reached for her arm again. With an unprecedented force, she was pushed away by the shoulder, and Susie faced back up at her, opened her mouth, and unleashed a torrent of fire to engulf Noelle's face. Now Susie was the one that reached up to hold Noelle in place and keep covering the screaming deer in fire. She didn't know how long this torture lasted, but the fire felt like it lasted for an eternity.

When she was let go, and stumbled her way back into the apartment in desperate search for the sink, the entire building was already on fire. The firemen were able to put out the fires and take Noelle to a hospital. She survived. And the officials arranged for her to get a new apartment in a different building.

But her and Susie's abrupt breakup left her scarred forever. The entire right side of Noelle's face was disfigured both beyond recognition as well as recovery. She was to spend the rest of her life with half her face burnt off.

And there was no going back from that. Within weeks from this incident, she got news of Susie's death as well. Her clothes were found empty, in an empty one-room apartment. Laid on a pile of dust beneath a noose. She hung herself.

With even less of a reason to go outside, Noelle reclined more at home. Leaving only to fetch groceries and the like. At times she didn't even take out the trash, and instead, trash just piled up in her apartment as it gradually became the home of a hoarder. To distract herself, she eventually bought a cat. Then a second one. Then a third one. And even that didn't stop the breakdowns. More and more frequently, she just had 'episodes' where she would panic, feel despair for reasons she didn't understand and found herself unable to get out of bed or move from where she currently was.

She eventually sought out a psychiatrist to figure out what was wrong with her. But even his sessions didn't improve her condition. She woke up again to the wheezing sounds of fighting cats, unable to figure out why her depression wouldn't go away. She looked in the mirror at the half of her face she still had. She was in her late fourties at this point. The blue colour was already fading from her fur and turning into more of a slight grey.

It was one of those days again. The day she would start off by visiting her shrink right after breakfast. The psychiatrist's office was in a comfy office building. The part that was hard to get used to, was that all his secretaries were nudists. As was he. Doctor Donatien Alphonse, a black Boss Monster, sat down on his sofa with a notepad and a pen in his hands.

Listening to Noelle ramble on about what was going through her mind recently. Her depression had gotten worse as time went on. Which was why she now visited Doctor Alphonse several times a week. And she didn't skip sessions either. Mostly because his therapy sessions were the closest thing to social interaction she had in her life.

It was a session like any other. The only difference to anything before, lay in what happened on her way back. On a far-off street, on her way home, she spotted a monster staring at her. It was too far away for her to make out its appearance, but merely looking at them unsettled her. When a few hours later, she went out for groceries, that was when she saw it again. And this time, it was close enough for her to make out what it looked like.

Most of it looked like Susie - same jacket - same magenta scale tone - same face - same hair - except it was taller, more broadly built. 'Her' neck was broken, so her unnaturally long and drawn out head hung off her shoulders, limply dangling about with every step. But this thing couldn't be Susie, Susie was dead. And yet here it was, walking about. Mumbling something to itself. Staring at Noelle with the one eye that was in an angle to do so.

And it wasn't just made up of Susie. The half of Kris' corpse that was still recognizable after he crashed onto the pavement, was merged onto Susie's left side. And 'he' was moving as well. Reaching up to try to wind his arm around Susie, only for it to slip off as 'she' stumbled Noelle's way. As soon as Noelle was fully aware of what she was seeing, she rushed home and convinced herself that it was just some kind of daydream. Or a day-nightmare.

She hoped as much. After all, she didn't see it after she went home. On the next day, she decided to take a stroll and sit down on a bench in a nearby park. Watch the children play in the distance and their mothers keep an eye on them. Except something in her field of view was out of place. When she started paying attention to it, she realized it was that thing again.

This large Susie-Kris amalgamate was shuffling right her way. She froze. She didn't move one inch. And it kept coming closer. Closer and closer. She didn't get up until it was a mere four feet away from her.

At this point, she could hear what they were saying, too. The things Susie's limp head was mumbling were an endless repetition of "Let go, let go. If you don't let go, I'm going to burn you 'till you do! I said let go! Let go! Let go..."

Kris was just repeatedly trying to usher Susie's name, and failing to do so half-way through every time.

"Su - Susie?" She tried talking to it, but doing so did nothing to make it break from continuously approaching Noelle and mumbling those same sentences over and over. 'Kris' paid little attention to her, and like 'Susie's mumbling, his attempts at hugging Susie were in an endless loop.

The creature was very slow, so she could keep away easily, but what she realized soon, was that she was the only one paying attention to it. Everyone around here was going about their everyday lives. Passerbys on the walkways kept walking, the mothers of hometown kept watching their children play, no-one seemed to pay it any mind.

When the thing followed her onto the walkway, it almost bumped into a lizard, and the lizard didn't so much as twitch as it stumbled right in front of him. "What - get out of the way!"

She tried to warn him. At first, he appeared confused on whether she was talking to him. Then he stopped and turned her way. "I'm sorry, what?"

She had to walk circles around him to avoid the 'thing' catching up with her. "I - uh - don't you see..." It took her a moment to fully process that he either didn't see this thing, or he was otherwise unaware of it.

Between herself and the thing, she seemed to be the only one capable of drawing anyone's attention. Putting her panic on display didn't do anything about the monster. Finally fully aware of the situation, she ran. Straight past the street without looking both ways and off behind the apartment complexes. Into the alleyways. The amalgamate slowly followed her.

Noelle got past the street, but the monster was in no way fast enough to get out of the way of a green car that came right away. It crashed into the monster. The monster was unscathed, but the driver was injured and unconscious. The crash finally got the people around her into a stir, with some confused onlookers calling for an ambulance.

They weren't aware of that thing, but it was real. And it was coming for Noelle. She ran off into the alleyways to try to shake it off. With little orientation on which way led where. When she hit a dead end, she finally stopped to catch her breath.

A mistake as she would realize with creeping dread. Somehow, in spite of being so slow previously, it caught up and was coming her way. With no way for her to escape. There were no fences to climb or the like. Only walls way too tall to reach up. "Su - Susie, please! I'm sorry about what happened, I didn't..." It was no use. It was about as responsive to her as all those people were to it.

All she could do was cower in a corner behind a dumpster. Which didn't stop it from following her there. "No...please! I'm sorry! Susie, stop!" Unnaturally big dragon claws grabbed Noelle by the collar and lifted her up. The dangling head on Susie's half raised itself and opened its mouth. "No! No! Please stop, I beg you!" She struggled and screamed because now she knew what was coming.

It was even more terrifying to see it raise Susie's head than seeing it hang down the way it did before. But now it moved up to face her. All the panic, all the fear, all the pain, she felt everything she went through back when its 'Susie' half covered her in fire and burned her face off all over again. Not to mention when it actually did happen again: The pain, the feeling of suffocation and the paralyzing fear, she was trapped in that moment again. Another eternity of pain and suffering.

But this time, it ended abruptly, with a surge through all her body. Her eyes shot open and she sat up in one move. She was hyperventilating, but at least she could breathe. It took her a moment to snap out of her stupor and realize that she was back in her one-room apartment. In her bed. With her pajama on. She reached up to her face. The right side was still burnt off. The left side felt fine. And upon getting up and looking into the mirror right next to her bed, it looked fine, too.

Was it all a dream? That was relieving. A look at her phone cast a cold shower down her spine. The date on her phone said it was the next day. Either she overslept for an entire day without noticing, or it really happened...and somehow she wound up back in her bed the next morning like nothing happened.

She hoped it was the former. But upon leaving the building she knew one thing. If that previous day was a 'dream', then she was still dreaming. Because the moment she went out the door, the monster was right there, across the street. Staring at her and not long later, coming for her. She wasn't even sure how she knew it was staring at her when it did. Its limp dragon head was just dangling around. But she could feel it every time.

She had to hurry to the doctor's office. She must have misjudged everything. She must have imagined the accident it caused. It had to be in her head. It had to. She had to be quick. And sure enough, as long as she didn't stop, the thing didn't catch up with her. She called Doctor Alphonse.

She was lucky, he was free at the moment and up for a spontaneous extra session between regular sessions. The secretaries at the counter were surprised to see her today. The doctor didn't seem surprised at all. "You sounded so worked up on the phone." The grinning goat sat down on his recliner with his legs spread. "What has you in such a rush all of a sudden."

Describing what she saw, heard and felt in the last two days was a long, drawn out process that involved constantly fighting with her stutters and her shaking voice and required her therapist to draw out all the details with more and more direct questions. When it was finally over, he leaned forward with his head rested on his palm.

"Well well, to summarize, you now believe you're being chased around by some kind of amalgamate made up of Kris and Susie. What would we even call it? Suris? No..that doesn't sound right. Wait, I got it: Krusie. You're being haunted by Krusie."

"What does it- I mean how do I make it stop?"

"Well for that, we need to fully understand where its roots lie. Since what you described sounds more like dead bodies than actual living people, I'd wager you blame yourself for Kris' and Susie's deaths - and rightfully so. Yes, you are fully to blame for their deaths. The way you treated Kris and got in-between them, even for simple, platonic friendships, there may have been other things, but that was definitely something crucial to pushing him over the edge. Not to mention Susie."

He put on his glasses. "Let's face it. If Kris had seen a reason to live, he'd have a perfectly fine life right now. But Susie, the moment you saw any shot at some make-be- at a relationship with her, you stripped her of any future she had without you. In the end, the despair of realizing what you had wrought on her prospects, was too much for her to bear. If she had had a single person in her life other than you - even if only as a friend."

He didn't need glasses and they were only for effect, so he now leaned forwards, took them off and pointed at her with them. "She may still walk among us as a normal monster, rather than a disfigured figment of your imagination. You drove her to suicide. Both of them." He snickered in-between his analysis so much, he had to drop back against the lean of his chair.

But after that, his voice became more calm and he sat up, staring Noelle in the eyes as soon as he opened his. "Their deaths were unnecessary and avoidable. And the only thing that caused them, was you." The tone in his voice turned so somber towards the end, Noelle almost felt the darkness in his words creep along the walls.

"This is not helping!"

Calling him out didn't remove that wide smile from his face. "Au contraire, not-so-young lady. Sugarcoating it would run the risk of enabling your self-harm. You can't work through an issue if you're in denial of it. Step one is always to acknowledge that there is a problem, what that problem is, and where your role in it lies."

He took another look at his notepad. "In your case we're lucky, it is obvious enough what your role in all of it was. If this issue has progressed so far that you hallucinate when you're awake, then it has to be tackled. I've laid out the matter to you. If you remain in denial now, then it will only get worse. This monster, this 'Krusie' won't stop haunting you until you make your peace with the fact that you are the one and only cause. You orchestrated every bit of what it stands for. Susie's death, your general situation, maybe even Kris' death."

"General situation? What's that supposed to mean?"

He sighed and checked his watch. "I mean I could go into that, but I have a skittish ophid that I need to tend to before he drifts away. We'll continue this tomorrow morning." He got up and offered her a handshake like he always did at the end of their regular therapy sessions. When she hesitated, he grabbed her hand to shake it with a strong grip. A clear signal that their spontaneous session was over and that he wasn't going to budge.

She was hesitant to leave the office. It felt a little like a sanctuary into which Krusie wouldn't tread even when it was after her. She wasn't even sure what that excuse he made meant. What was an Ophid? She used to read a lot about all kinds of things when she was younger. It felt faintly as though it was supposed to ring a bell, and if she was still in her teens, she would have known immediately what a big word like that meant.

But she wasn't a teenager any more. She hadn't been on her hooves like she used to be for decades now. And now, the very moment those automated doors outside slid open, her heart sank. Right on the other side of a busy street downtown, there it was again. Staring at her. Raising its Susie-head and baring its teeth at her.

Scars littered 'her' face. With unnatural, erratic motions in both her and Kris' arms, it began making its way over the road. This time, it maneuvered its way between the cars that stood waiting for a green light.

She had to go. Away. She wasn't sure where, but she had to go. Even when it was out of sight, she wasn't sure where she could go. She had to spend her time somehow. Somewhere away from here. Or from wherever it was. It was in her head, she just had to distract herself. But she didn't even know how to do that.

What was she going to do? Go to some restaurant? Treat herself to a good meal to try and forget about the monster? What would it look like to the other guests, an aging woman eating expensively all by herself? Same with going to the movies, or classic theatre. A disfigured woman like her, going to some local artiste theatre all by herself. Especially with what kinds of plays those had running, everyone would assume she was some kind of pervert.

For several hours, she just took public transport, heading aimlessly from one part of the nearby city to the next. She had nothing to do, nowhere to go, no-one to turn to. Towards the evening, her mind wandered back to the people she and Susie still knew even when they isolated themselves - okay, who was she kidding? - after she isolated herself and Susie from the rest of the world.

What was Berdly up to now? Surely someone like him wouldn't have anything going on in his life. A quick look into some online phone books gave her his address. After all this time, surely he'd appreciate a visit. Even if it was unannounced.

It led to a single family house. She expected an apartment building like the one she lived in. Did he still live with his parents? It was a different house, so if so, they moved. She snuck closer to catch a look inside. A bird monster with red feathers stood in the kitchen and was cleaning a few plates.

She wore a homely dress and had a smile so calm and content, Noelle could feel that in decades of looking at Susie's face and her own image in the mirror, she hadn't once seen one like it. Who was this? Berdly's sister was blue. Besides, she looked more Noelle's age than Pluma's.

The house had two garages. One was open and completely empty. The automated door on the other began to open as a car pulled up. Seeing who drove it surprised her enough to send her jaw to the ground. It was Berdly. The very same one. She would recognize his face anywhere, even through how he changed. His feathers had lost some of their colour and he had gained some weight. But that was definitely him. Pulling into the garage with an expensive looking car and with his business jacket still on.

When she began to grasp the implications, the pace of her breathing sped up. With one hand on the windowsill, she peeked inside and watched him hang up his jacket. He walked up to the woman who turned to him with that smile still on. When Noelle saw him brush his beak along the side of hers and her reciprocating the gesture, her face scrounged up.

She felt as if a cold claw gripped at her heart and squished at it, digging the sharp inner ends into it. Her lips trembled. She almost felt like she had shed tears from how dry her face was under her eyes, except that there weren't any tears when she tried brushing them away.

While the only people in Noelle's life took their own and with them, hers, Berdly must have met some girl at university and after it. Now it dawned on her that the two teenagers sitting on the couch playing a game on some console were his and that red bird woman's children.

It wasn't fair. It drove her crazy and she wasn't even sure why. She was already contemplating destroying something here just to do something about how angry and confused she felt, when a lot of that aimless anger was put a stop to by the sight of an amalgamated corpse standing only a few metres from where she stood.

The 'Kris' half of the monster wasn't trying to hug Susie as much as reach for Noelle. Paying little mind to 'Kris', the 'Susie' half knelt down to reach for the bottom of the garage door. The automated door tried to hold itself shut, but the monster's dragon arm ripped it open with little issue.

It reached onto the back of the car and scratched it with its claws. 'Susie's head hung down like a dead animal head up until then, but now it pulled itself back up and swung itself about, drawing a loose serpentine motion into the air with its long, broken neck and resumed repeating Susie's last words to Noelle. "Let go! If you don't let go..."

She ran. She ran and ran and ran. Police stations, bus stops, she skipped every place she could have stopped at until she was further into the city again, where she could get into a crowded train straight back to an area closer to hometown. And yet when Noelle was changing from a local train to a bus, peeking over the crowd, the monster stood there. Watching her. Biding its time.

There only was one place to go: Home.

She didn't stop running until she was inside the building. And even then, she hurried upstairs, unlocked and opened the front door of her apartment and slammed it shut behind her. She neglected to feed the cats and they had now made a mess. But she had little attention to pay to that. She focused on taking a shower and going to bed. Maybe going back to sleep would make all this horrible stuff go away. She would go to sleep and the next morning it would all be better.


	32. Horror Show

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 20

Horror Show

* * *

Going to sleep didn't solve it.

Noelle woke up to banging and cracking sounds. And a deep, disturbing droning that dug itself down into her marrow. The banging continued, and was clearer the more it went on. The crackling was her window breaking up, due to a large clawed arm with pink scales clenching itself into a fist and smashing it open.

A monstrosity that resembled what Susie's corpse would have looked like if she had one, with what little of Kris' was left after he jumped to his death, grafted onto it. And with every time it hit the window, more of the glass came out and strew itself in-between the shaken-up cats.

"Leeet gooo!" The half-slurred screams from the monster should have woken up all her neighbors. The panic no longer kept her from moving with the monster so close. She threw off the blanket, grabbed the only one of her cats she could immediately see, made for the exit door and opened it to leave as quickly as she could. With Jingle, her black cat in one hand and grabbing her way along the railings with the other, she made her way downstairs. Without looking back once.

She already knew the sky was covered in clouds as it was every day, but what took her by surprise when she sprinted out the front door, was the fog that filled the outside now. It was so thick, she could barely see two crossings ahead as she ran further into the center of hometown.

With some distance from the monster, she took a breather. But after only a few seconds of gathering her strength, she lost her grip on Jingle. The cat sprang from her arms onto the pavement. "Wait, come back!" With light steps, it made its way over the street, down to the church. Whenever Noelle tried to catch up, the cat barely escaped her grasp and rushed ahead a little faster. This chase saw them passing the church, making a turn to the right, right into the graveyard at the edge of the forest.

Or rather she expected there to be a forest, but there wasn't. But starting where the graveyard ended, there was only a cliff. The trees, the grass, everything just stopped all that there was south of the graveyard, was barren rock, the edge of which led down into a bottomless pit. And the rock beneath the graveyard didn't reach far down either. The air was clearer here.

In the distance, across the white fog that shrouded even the area below, she could see a further outside part of Hometown she tended to cross on the way to the city. And this edge stretched all the way to both sides with no end in sight. It was as though everything around her was just a chunk of rock floating above the same abyss she could only see from here.

"Jingle?" The cat circled around a tombstone. She didn't recognize the name on it, but after a few rounds, it stopped. "Pspsps...come here." She tried to beckon it to get back into her arms. Instead of doing that, the cat sat down where it was.

It took her a few moments to realize what was happening then. The cat was melting. More and more of it vanished and became a black puddle on the dried up earth. And to make what she saw even more bizarre, the black liquid moved on its own and reshaped itself into a pentagram. With one of the points pointing her way, making it resemble a head with horns.

"What...what just happened?" She was so dumbstruck by the sight of it all that she took a few steps back. The other conspicuous thing still on the graveyard, was a cross. A very crudely made cross, fashioned not from properly cut logs or bars of wood, but sticks and branches wrapped together with ivy vines. A skeleton hung upon the cross, with its arms bound to the sides by its wrists to make it look like someone was crucified.

But the skeleton itself was an oddity, stuck between two things it could have been and being neither. Antlers peeked out of the top of its skull like those of a deer monster. But it wasn't the skeleton of a regular deer. The antlers were clearly the short and stubby ones of a deer monster, not the large, elaborate ones of an actual deer, and it had hands and human forearms. It was what it would have looked like if deer monsters left behind a skeleton the way a human did.

She was shaken up by a sudden, clearly audible cracking sound. It came from the pentagram. Something about it had changed. There was a hoof mark in the ground in the middle of it, dug right down as if an insane force was applied making it. The kind of hoof mark a deer monster like herself left behind on the ground, but it was so deep, the force would have necessitated being several times as heavy as she was.

She sprang up and squeaked with surprise when she saw another mark crush itself into the ground roughly her way. But giving it a closer look showed the direction pointed towards the crucified deer skeleton instead. A third hoof mark appeared, and then a fourth. Something was leaving them behind and making its way to the skeleton.

Noelle was taken by surprise when it arrived and had to cover her ears, as the shrill scream of an insane woman erupted all around her. It made her head spin and shook the ground. Then with a smaller but similarly terrifying force, something hacked away at the base of the cross, breaking it off and bringing it to a fall.

To make it worse, bringing down the cross and cracking the skeleton's ribcage wasn't enough for it. More hoof marks appeared on the ground and this time, they were coming right for Noelle.

She ran. She didn't even know where to run, she just ran. It all seemed so real, but she had read and heard about how people with hallucinations were completely convinced that what they saw was real. She couldn't go home, she wasn't safe from the monster at home, so she called up her shrink instead. "Why of course I have time for an extra session, why don't you come on by?" This was the only place the monster didn't go to. Maybe there, she was safe from whatever that thing on the graveyard was as well.

"Now to summarize, on top of Krusie, there's now a kind of - invisible - deer ghost as well?"

"So, what do you think this all means?"

"I have some ideas on what it means, but in the end, none of it is real. It's a coping mechanism for things you haven't admitted to yourself, but that deep down, you know very well. Tell you what..." He grabbed a special device for printing out custom receipts. "...let me prescribe and give you some of these right here. They are THE go-to treatment for psychosis-induced hallucinations. Just take three a day, and the moment you start doing so, the big scary monster will go away. As will any ghosts or bottomless pits."

"Wa- wait..." Not long after handing her a jar of pills, he was already pushing her back out of his office and she panicked at the thought of going out there again. "They're still out there."

Doctor Alphonse sighed. "They're in your head. Until you actually take the pills, just repeat after me again and again: None of this is real."

"None of this is real."

He repeated himself just to be sure: "None of this is real."

"None of this is real." She already felt better. At least enough to have the courage to walk through those doors. Out into the foggy world, where Susie's and Kris' merged corpses already waited further down the walkway.

"None of this is real. None of this is real. None of this is real." She repeated the mantra, again and again. But that didn't stop it from stumbling her way. It was okay. As long as she kept walking in the other direction at the same pace, it wouldn't catch up. So sure enough, she headed the other way and once in a comfortable pace, got out the pills. Maybe it was better to start taking them sooner, rather than later.

She stopped to not have an accident with them. When she was done swallowing it, she was startled by how much progress the monster had made catching up with her. Of course they wouldn't work instantly, she had to digest the first pill for it to work.

As she wandered through the city, she got the impression that she was taking less breaks to look around. Gradually, she realized it wasn't her taking less breaks, she was taking any breaks the monster would let her have before it caught up. It was the monster that didn't leave room for as many breaks as much as it used to.

Even several hours later, the creature was still there, continuously following Noelle. She figured that maybe, it wouldn't start working until she had gone through more than one pill. Her hallucinations had progressed pretty far after all. She swallowed a second pill and gave it some time. As time went by, she realized that something changed again.

She wasn't just not stopping and taking breaks. She was marching - pacing through the streets non-stop. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to in order to stay out of the monster's reach.

The last few days, this hadn't been the case. If she didn't know any better, the pills didn't make the monster go away. They made it go faster. They exacerbated the problem rather than to solve it. This couldn't go on forever. There had to be a way to put a stop to this. Still marching to not get caught, she stared at the jar. Well, he did say to eat three a day. Maybe the third time was the charm. A third pill was going to solve it. At least she hoped so.

It didn't solve it. Soon after taking the last pill for the day, Noelle was running under heavy breaths from the walking corpse just to keep away from it. Every step of the way, it was reaching out for Noelle with both Susie's arms and Kris' one arm.

She ran as fast as she could, for as long as she could. But what was bound to happen eventually in her fear and exhaustion, did happen. While crossing one of the many streets, she tripped over the edge of the walkway and fell on the pavement. She was in pain from the fall, but the only thing she could think of, was the creature that soon grabbed hold of her and turned her around. "No - nononono stop! Leave me alone!"

It showed no intent to do such a thing. It responded with the same words it always repeated. "Let go!" All three of its arms held her in a tight grip and straddled the struggling, whinging deer while the limp head began to move on its own, raised itself and got into position to put her through the same moments that scarred her all over again, for a perceived eternity.

Trapping her head in a pillar of flame that shot out of Susie's mouth. The pain, the feeling of suffocation, going through getting the right side of her her face burnt off never numbed her experience of it. Each time felt every bit as excruciating as the last.

"Aaaaaaaaah!" With a panicked scream she shot up. She had woken up back in her bed. She was wearing her outdoor clothes and the clothes were fine. And her face, when going over it with her hand, didn't feel much different from before either.

What had changed since last she was in here, was the apartment itself. The window was still broken from last time Krusie broke in here. Shards of glass lay everywhere. Every metal or ceramic surface was covered in rust and the message 'Why would you do this to us?' was smeared over and over again onto every corner of the walls with human blood.

And she could already hear the throaty breathing and droning from her dead girlfriend climbing up the wall outside her window. She wasn't safe in her apartment any more. She had to run. Run to the only place that was safe. Today, she could stay with her shrink for a full session, since there was an actual regular session scheduled for this morning. She just had to get there.

Krusie gave her no room for rest. Not long after Noelle sped into the fog outside, she could already hear the monster burst through the same front door and run after her.

Noelle ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. By some miracle, she braved the obstacles she came across as she ran by foot from village to town to village into the city and to where she needed to go to get to Doctor Alphonse's office. When finally, those doors slid shut behind her, she collapsed on the floor from exhaustion. All her joints were in pain from overuse, even her arms. The secretaries had to help her up on her feet and almost carry her into the room in the back.

His smiling therapist lay across the leans of his chair, watching with glee as the women placed the twitching deer on the couch. "Good morning. Good to see you appear on time in spite of our recent irregular encounters. How have you been faring?"

Noelle lay there with her face buried in the soft cushions and didn't bother to lift it when answering. "Not good!"

"Why? Did my medication not have any effects?"

That got her angry enough to push herself up and sit upright again. "The pills didn't work! They don't make her go away, she only chases me faster if I take them!"

The goat buried his face in his hand and sighed. "We've been over this, your monster isn't real. Remember the mantra."

"It killed me! Twice!"

"And yet here you are, talking to me."

His responses only egged the already aggravated deer further on. "That's because I...I...Wait...what if any of this isn't real?"

"At last, yes, the monster isn't real."

She shook her head. "No - no I mean everything here. Cars crash into the monster and turn into wrecks, the monster is as real as everything around us. But what if none of it is."

This bothered Doctor Alphonse enough to sit in his chair properly. "Oh goodness, this isn't going in any produc- Look, Mrs. Holiday, let's take a few steps back. Obviously your hallucinations are a way of coping with some kind of discontent. What I don't understand is: Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you discontent with your life? Isn't this the life you wanted? I mean what did you want at the very beginning? You wanted to be with Susie, you got to be with Susie. You got exactly what you wanted. As far as I understand, this is the life you dreamed of. The self-satisfaction from getting what you wanted led to your inaction and self-isolation. Everything in your life - as you live it right now - is an outcome of your relationship with Susie. So this is the life you wanted. And yet here you are, going to therapy over three times a week with no sign of improvement."

"It - it wasn't supposed to go this way."

"And yet in some iteration, it always does. This life of yours may not be a good one, but it is exactly the one you wanted and it is the one you chose. If you think you could have done better, the only limiting factor here was yourself."

She felt disgruntled hearing him talk about her life like that. "Hey! It's not like my life is over!"

The black goat burst out laughing. "Oh dearie, I think at this point a little reality check is in order. I've long suspected to know where your hallucinations come from. It's a coping mechanism. You aren't happy with your life because it is in an objectively bad and irretrievable spot. You're enduring the consequences of some horrendous life choices and this Krusie thing is your subconscious trying to bring that to the forefront!"

"I meant - things can get better, if only the monster was gone!"

Her shrink shook his head. "Dear, dear, let's examine the situation again. You live alone in an apartment. You have no marketable skills and are much too old to start over in a new field, so welfare is your way to go for the rest of your life. Your personal life is dead in the sand. You're long past the wall. So much so it's not that any children you'd try having at this point would turn out autistic or with a range of defects, you're so far gone you can't have any anymore. No job, no looks, no prospects for children, even if you faced the music, no man would want to be with you at this point."

He leaned forward with an indifferent gesture. "Even if at this point, you turned around, struggled to climb up the hill of betterment, you would only repeatedly trip and tumble down into the fiery pit of failure. Your life is for all that matters, over. Living with the torment of a lonely shut-in, wandering the streets aimlessly, therapy sessions to cope with it and the looming realization that all of it is your own fault."

"Not to mention haunted by the literal ghosts of those whose lives you got in the way of. All there is to your life from here, is a few more decades of just this, day-in, day-out. And if I were you, I would pray to whatever is out there that no such thing as hell exists, because if it does, I'd wager your personal hell would be just more of this. Living alone in the trist, grey streets of a foggy town, hunted and killed over and over by a creature made up of those your well-justified guilt is directed at."

"Shut up!" She shouted at him. "Stop!"

"Please, don't shoot the messenger. You can't blame the devil for holding up a mirror, when it is what you see in it, that draws your ire."

He actually did have a mirror ready right under his chair to pick up and point to her. Looking into it, Noelle ran her hand one more time along the burnt half of her face and took in the greying out blue of her fur. "No - no. It can't be."

"It is."

"What if none of this is real?"

Dr. Alphonse sighed. "Your monster isn't real. Your life is."

"No I mean everything. This is all wrong."

"Well yes, your life has indeed gone the wrong way I'd say."

"No!" She hook her head and became angry over him constantly dragging this away from what she meant. "The monster is just as real as everything around us, but what if nothing is? What if - oh god!"

Strong bangs against the wall, accompanied by a familiar droning of the same two oft-repeated words, preceded the arrival of the hulking monstrosity that has been terrorizing her for the last few days. "Oh god no! The monster! Nothing can stop her!" It no longer had any trouble entering the one place in the world Noelle thought safe.

The psychiatrist sighed. "Again, the monster isn't real."

"It is!"

With a few punches with her dragon claws, Krusie burst the door out of the frame and broke through the wall into the room. With a long step, it entered and crushed a glass table under its foot, littering the floor with its shards. The doctor didn't react to the noise at all, he kept his face buried in his palm. "All right, I'll indulge you. This monster of yours - is Krusie with us in the room right now?"

Noelle got up and backed off to the other end of the room, but she still found to scream at him: "YES!"

"All right all right, no need to get so worked up. Describe it again." Noelle had little nerve to do so, she couldn't get over how disturbing Kris' half-squashed face looked with blood dripping along every inch of where his semi-intact half ended. Swiping statues off the racks, cracking tables and chairs, everywhere the creature went, it destroyed everything in its path. "How am I to know if it's real if you can't even describe it?"

"It's destroying everything here! Look at the table!" While slowly circling the room, dodging the monster's attempts at grabbing her, Noelle made her way to the shattered glass table, picked up one shard and pointed it at her psychiatrist. "How not-real does this look to you? What am I holding?"

"You're holding thin air, the table is fine."

"The table is NOT fine!" The doctor went back to pointing the mirror at her. "No - no, this is all wrong. How can something like this thing exist? If it's destroying everything, it's real." In-between dodging corpses' swipes, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "It's all wrong, my colors are wrong! I'm not blue! I'm brown or orange."

The goat folded up his arms and shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. No, you've always been blue."

"No! And you - none of this is real! Look at yourself! You're black!"

The doctor tilted his head her way. "Do you have a problem with black people?"

"There are no black boss monsters! Boss monsters always have white fur and white horns!"

Still completely calm, seemingly unaware of the continuous battle happening in his office, the psychiatrist pulled up his wallet to open a set of photos of him, a female black boss monster and several smaller ones. "I'm guessing my wife and children right here are not real either then?"

"No! I'm not buying it anymore! I'm not blue I - the dark world! I was blue in the dark world!"

"Oh goodness, now we're starting with this 'Dark World' nonsense again."

"I'm still in the dark world, aren't I? That's why - " She noticed something. "Susie is pink - that's wrong, she's supposed to be purple! This isn't real! You - you were in the dark world, too! This is all you! This is some weird dark world...magic...thing!"

Now, with a little resignation in his voice, finally, the doctor's demeanour changed. "If I really can't persuade you otherwise any more, perhaps it is time."

"Wait - time for what?"

The shrink got up from his chair, straightened his white bow tie, stepped over the rubble and stopped in the big hole in the wall that was once the door to his office. "Time for us to go of course. Come along, I'll drive."

Noelle didn't pass up an opportunity for a car to help escape from this thing and ran past him to gain some time to brace for the monster's next attack. She lured Krusie in more circles to pass time as Doctor Alphonse slowly made his way to the stairs. Once he had some fair distance and was closer to the ground level, she lured the monster into an opposite corner and made a break for the stairs to quickly run all the way to the basement, where the doctor was already waiting for her with the door to the garage pulled open.

When the monster broke through the same doorframe, the doctor somehow walked away from the ordeal unharmed. She tried hiding behind several cars, but somehow, the monster just knew where she was, without seeing her and stepped onto the cars, crushing the hoods and the rest of their frames with every step. She drew it away from Doctor Alphonse, who got into his own, turned on the engine and kept the door to the other front seat open. "Are you coming?"

When Noelle found a window in-between the monster's attacks, she made a run for it, got in the car and slammed the door shut and shouted at her shrink: "Quick! Let's go!"

The doctor rolled his eyes. "All right, all right. No need to make a fuss." He pulled out of his parking space and with a few concise turns, was well on his way to the surface and away from the creature. For a moment, Noelle sighed with relief at having escaped this thing and being granted a few minutes of normalcy.

That was until they actually exited the garage and got outside. Some of the fog had dissipated, but the surroundings it hid from her had changed as well. The same rust covering all metal surfaces in her apartment, now covered a lot of the buildings and roads as well.

Giant circular rifts were torn into the sky, and through them, loose ends of blood vessels hung over the city with a constant stream of blood spilling into the streets. And where she expected the sun to shine through to make for a credible source of bright light, a darkness 'shone' through the clouds instead. Turning the daylight everywhere else into more of an enigma.

"Now then." He began. "Could you please go back to where you explain where your discontent with your situation comes from? This hollow existence you live here, isn't that what you wanted?"

There were long pauses in-between them talking, partly to keep an eye on the road, partly for Noelle to watch what was unfolding outside. But occasionally she did break the silence before it lingered too much. "No!"

"It's the life you chose. You chose to confess to her and start that relationship. And now she's dead and - supposedly - chasing you through town for the rest of your life."

"That's why I don't believe you any more. This is some kind of dream, isn't it?"

One of the more nearby rifts in the sky had something happen to it. Noelle noticed that something apart from blood came through. It was Susie. Well, not Susie exactly, it was another 'Krusie', a second monster.

"Can't you at least acknowledge that you got everything you wanted? That you aren't just a victim of happenstance? That perhaps, you made a bad decision?" It wasn't the only time another monster would appear. All the rifts they passed had more Krusies enter the world through them, register Noelle's presence and try to pursue the car.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you had a perfectly fine love life - and most likely a family life - lined up for you. Within your grasp, reachable without any effort. All you had to do, was to want it. But you threw it away for this. All so you had a new 'daddy' to latch onto, since the real daddy wasn't feeling so well. Don't you think that somewhere along the way, mistakes were made?"

"What are you- "

"You know exactly what I'm asking. Why did you throw away what you already had - for this?" She wasn't even sure where he was taking them, but from the route she could tell it was going to the suburbs around the city.

"It's the twenty first century. I'm forward thinking. It was time to try out something new."

Donnie burst out laughing just before taking a familiar turn onto the roadway straight to Hometown. "'Forward-thinking..." Nothing was said until he pulled in next to the church. He sighed. "Eight-teen thousand years."

"What?"

He went ahead and spun around, walking backwards to face Noelle on his way. "For eight-teen thousand years, the light world has had advanced civilizations, spread across almost the entire world. And a lot longer than that if you include the stone-age. Eight-teen thousand years of trial and error, and you think you're the first one? You really fancy yourself some kind of pioneer? Do you legitimately think you were the first to come up with that? On an entire planet's worth of people who had eight-teen thousand years to try before you? "

Finally, she caught him. She pointed at him and tried to hit his chest with her finger to dig into it. "I knew it! This is all you somehow! This whole place!"

Now that the mask was slipping, the devil rolled his eyes. "Yes, lightner. We're still in the dark world. Welcome to my little horror show. All in stunning 3D and dolby surround. You got me. This place is in fact not Hometown. It is called the 'Vision of Sloth'. Now, where was I?"

He scratched his chin. "Ah right. The part where you think your idea of being with Susie was this 'new' thing. The part where you think pursuing dysfunction is an intellectual achievement. Don't think I didn't pick up this constant air of superiority when you paraded your relationship with Susie around with the few people - myself included - who still bothered to put up with you. We all did. It's part of why you're all alone now."

All the smugness and laughter was now gone and the lingering spite hiding beneath had taken its place. "Something as simple, as self-indulgent as trying to supplant the dive into the scary depths of a real relationship, by pursuing self-gratification with another girl instead. Do you really think you're the first one to come up with that? Do you really think this is this brand new, never-before-seen, groundbreaking, stunning and brave idea that no-one has ever had before you?"

He couldn't keep himself from laughing. "I mean it's only the most overused cliché in ALL of early twenty-first-century entertainment. Do you really fancy yourself that much of a genious for 'coming up' with it?"

They made their way to the graveyard and the cliff that lay to the south of it. The cross with the deer skeleton was back up. Not only that, it was no longer alone. Next to it, a second cross with a second humanoid deer skeleton had been put up, arranged so that the skeletons would hold hands. "No, 'boys are icky' is neither deep, nor complex, nor educated, nor 'groundbreaking', it isn't even in any way mature. It frankly sounds more like getting purposefully stuck at the developmental level of a five-year-old. And it certainly does not make you intelligent, educated or bright. Let alone a genious."

In front of the two skeletons was a third one, a smaller one. Also with a deer monster's antlers instead of those of an actual deer. They were arranged with a hexagram drawn beneath them, connecting the three through one of its two triangles.

The devil didn't stop heading for the edge of the abyss until he was right in front of the crosses. "Don't get me wrong, you may have once been something akin to a genious, long ago. When you were still young. When you had your life together and your future lined up. When you exceeded on a scholarly level and yet - school track team, voluntary organizing of school events, expertise in five different genres of computer games, playing cards, fortune telling, divination, occult knowledge, in-depth knowledge of foreign religions, foreign myths and tales, scripture, modern written fiction, you name it."

He spread out his arms and spun around. "You wanted to know it all, you knew most, and you always soaked in more knowledge like a sponge. That was academic rigor. That Noelle was a genious! What I'm looking at right now, is a mentally hampered cat lady with an over-inflated ego. A sad existence, only kept from completely breaking down in tears through an astounding level self-delusion."

As he went on, Noelle realized with dread creeping up her back, that from in-between the trees north of the graveyard, an army of Krusies came slowly lumbering their way. All with their lifeless dragon heads dangling down from their necks. "Do - doctor..."

She pointed to the monsters, but that only set him off more. "Yes, yes I can see them, stop worrying about it."

"So - so you control them?"

"What? No, you misunderstand what this is. This is a vision of your future, but it is your vision. Not mine. In the scope of this little film reel, I'm merely an actor reading his lines. The producer and director is none other than you. I don't control them. You do."

"B-but...why would they do this to me?" She ran her hand along the scars on her face.

"It's your subconscious trying to bring your consciousness to a realization you already made deep down. It's like I told you in the beginning. Always ask yourself: 'Why are old things old?' Or rather, ask 'Why did old things last long enough to become old to begin with?'."

He slid along the ground on their path to their destination: the edge of the cliff. "Why did all cultures around the world - from the religious traditions of the west all the way to tribal and mob laws in the Caribbean, rarely or not always in contact with one another, just happen to come up with roughly the same ideas and philosophies on how society should be run?"

And once there, he stopped and spun around in place, and the smugness on his face was back with a vengeance. "The answer is because those ideas are good, they lead to good outcomes and thus endure whereas their alternatives are forgotten. In your here-and-now, you look back at eight-teen thousand years of trial and error, an entire planet's worth of it. Yes, you can safely assume that at this point, every possible philosophy or lifestyle has been tried out. The ones that are 'old' are merely the ones that didn't lead to their adherents perishing."

The monsters came closer. And this time, they surrounded Noelle. There was no way out. They reached out for her, grabbed her by her arms and lifted her up. "In all those thousands of years of trial and error, you lightners have long settled on what are good life choices and what are objectively bad life choices."

The Krusies carried her closer to the edge of the abyss and her shrink followed them to keep talking. "So traditional rules aren't some obscure, vaguely evil entity oppressing you just because it can. They are much more like a friend telling you not to jump off a cliff, because they've seen the mangled carcasses of those who did before you. But of course you thank this friend by spitting them in the face and deciding to do it anyway."

When the terrified doe gazed upon the endless reaches beneath the slab of rock that this place was, that mischievous grin appeared on the devil's face again. "You chose to jump off that metaphorical cliff, Noelle. NOW DO IT WITH A LITERAL ONE!" Without further ado, the Krusies struck out and tossed Noelle off the cliff and into the cold windy descent into nothingness.


	33. Creator, you Traitor

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 21

Creator, you Traitor

* * *

Her head shook, and a heavy nausea overcame Noelle when she regained consciousness. She was sure she had just fallen off a cliff, but she was alive. She couldn't see anything, but she could clearly feel herself lie on something. Something solid but flat. And she couldn't move, something was holding her hands and hooves in place.

With a flaring burst, a torch was lit about a dozen feet away from her. One by one, it was used to light braziers all around her, allowing her to finally see what was around her. It was a Mistress, one of the adult, curvy Susies - now in a full, skin-tight leather suit - carrying the torch, and there were three more of them standing in different corners around Noelle.

She was in some cave, sealed from the outside world with solid rock in all directions. Noelle was stripped down to her underwear, strapped to some wooden table, tied to all the corners by her wrists and calves with rope, and with a few strands of rope wrapped around her waist to better hold her in place. Another one of the Mistresses carried a water tank towards her and placed it next to the painfully uncomfortable 'bed'. She gave the Mistress a questioning look, but the grinning dragoness simply pointed to the ceiling.

A big mass of a thick, black liquid stuck to the ceiling above the water tank. And slowly, drop by drop, it dripped down to where it was meant to gather. As the drops sped up into more of a continuous dribble, the devil's voice echoed from the black mass itself. "This is all we are to you, isn't it? Ink. Lifeless ink. Once a heartfelt confession in the making, now the meaningless byproduct of a confession never to be made. Seeing as you cast it aside and us along with it."

She looked for the Sinwielder, but he wasn't anywhere around. "I guess we should have anticipated this...disconnect. After all, you didn't even bother to hand-draw us directly, the way the human did with his creations. You used a machine to print us onto paper. So little personal touch. You never cared for anyone or anything but your current whim, did you?"

The moment it dawned on her that for all she knew, he very well was the clump looming above her, the terror that gripped her before, settled back in. "That's not - that's not true!"

"AND YET - you pay no thought to the one you made us for. You never showed us to him, in fact you avoid him now. You stripped us of our meaning. The ink is trapped in patterns such as myself and left to decay without purpose."

After enough of a torrent of it had fallen into the basin, it accumulated into an upright form which grew as more ink added itself to the body forming next to her. "Yes, you heard me right. I'm not as clueless as my less..." As soon as his form was coherent enough to form something akin to a head, he twisted it in an unnatural way. "...my less...fur-laden fellows. I've met a very good-looking and very knowledgeable friend of yours."

Even once his body on the ground was big enough to tower over the frozen doe, his face never took shape again, it remained covered in black slime as though his horns were melting down onto it. To replace it, an empty maw opened itself below as the ink creature grabbed the bed and supported itself to speak to Noelle from above.

His voice changed into a out-of-sync choir of various voices, coalescing into something similar to Asriel's familiar voice, but nightmarish at the same time. "He told me EVERYTHING about you. And about WHAT we are."

At last, the last bits of ink had dropped into the basin and added themselves to the devil's body. But it never compressed or solidified itself. His horns were clearly visible, as were his arms and legs, but they were all disjointed and out of proportion. His bow tie was stretched and twisted all wrong, and none of his body became solid or in any way natural-looking. He remained an oversized, constantly fluid blurb, a mockery of the caprine shape he tried to emulate.

Even after he let go of the bed and left the water tank to stumble in a wide circle around Noelle. "This is the reason we haven't been travelling for so long isn't it? The void that tears us all apart from the inside. The madness that drove Temptress to turn on us. To forever break the trust we placed in her AND each other. IT WAS ALL YOUR DOING! You DISCARDED us, JUST LIKE HOW YOU DISCARDED HIM! Just like you discarded another one in your life in favour of A COMPLETE STRANGER! All out of sheer impatience and changeableness. Out with the fancy Dealmaker, in with the raw and more sexual Sinwielder. IT'S JUST ALL ABOUT SEX WITH YOU, ISN'T IT?"

In a shocking surge, he rushed to the bed and rattled the rickety surface with his slimy hands.

"Does this get your rocks off somehow? Does seeing Daddy not be so well fill you with the urge to replace the sophisticated for raw, physical force? Are your romantic choices truly so easily steered by your desire for a strong, solid father figure to hold onto? Why does your relation to your father shape your preferences this way? If he shapes what you lust after so much, why don't you just latch onto dear daddy himself then? It isn't that far off from how far gone you already are."

Then, the ink creature let go of the table and took a few steps back. Finally, the black liquid compressed together and reformed Donatien's regular goat body. He grinned at Noelle with a tilted head and his stretched out fingers placed upon his bare chest.

"I mean, don't mistake what I say. None of us are free of sin. But to confuse the cravings of the flesh with the cravings of the heart, replacing love and affection for people you personally know with short-lived fixations on people you know nothing about: That is a fatal mistake. The cravings of the flesh do not last. They're all fun and games, so long as you keep them in your mind until they pass." He wagged his finger at her. "But you can't let them control you like that. You will only wind up lonely, depressed and empty-handed if you do."

He around the table and while passing by, tapped the trembling deer's nose with the clawed end of his index finger. "Now you're not the first person I ran into with your mindset. It was the exact same with Temptress when she joined forces with the Knight. I know exactly what you're thinking." He walked to a corner opposite from where he was before to rummage through a few bags that lay there, guarded by one of the Mistresses.

"I immediately knew when I saw that judgmental look on your face. The irony is not lost on me by the way. No-one in your life knows, no-one in your life said or did anything, and yet you already feel 'wrongfully' judged. Judged for thoughts you never ushered to anyone. A well-buried, but deep-seeded, lingering anger over acts of persecution that never actually happened. Possibly never will. 'They're all wrong', you think to yourself."

He pulled out a scourge, a medieval torture instrument nowadays only used for sexual purposes and stretched it out with both hands. "But you never ask yourself: 'Who is 'they'?' The people around you never said or implied anything. They can't because you left them clueless. They didn't come up with the judgments on your character that you project onto them. You know who did? You know who came up with the thing you're trying to convince yourself that they're wrong about?"

He got up and dug his claw into Noelle's chest. "You. That was all you. The 'they', whose judgment you feel crawling on your back every second of every day, is no-one other than yourself. You yourself knew better from the very beginning. Deep down, you always did."

He then turned around and began marching around the table. "But you're trying to convince yourself otherwise. The saccharine delusions 'they're' wrong about, feel good and comforting at the moment, so they must be good, right?" He stopped or a brief moment and flashed her a toothy grin. "Right?" And then resumed his march. "The decisions they err you to, must be correct."

He stopped to glare at her again. "Right? The future you saw in your vision is just hunky-dory, right? If something feels good and right in the moment, then it MUST be good and right. Am. I. Right?" He stopped to get back to the table and circle her nose with his finger. "Well, according to you, I apparently am." The whinging deer shook her head. "I myself am not quite convinced for reasons I will MAKE you feel."

He leaned onto the table and bent his head over hers. "You already know what I'm going to do to you, don't you?" He raised his flogger and stretched it out before her. "And yes, I WILL enjoy this for many reasons. Not least, you must know, I'm not just a nudist, I'm a sadist as well. I enjoy hurting people. Inflicting physical pain and the tells of physical suffering are what 'floats my boat', so to speak. The way they SQUIRM when they're in too much pain to keep control of themselves. It gives me a rush unlike any other...oh please don't look at me like that."

He laughed at her. "After all, who are you to judge? Now where was I? Seeing as you seem to think indulging one's perversions is a moral good, or a person's right, surely you wouldn't mind..." He raised his scourge and struck a piercingly blow. Causing a surge of pain that sent every part of her body trembling from the shock. "...if I INDULGE myself a bit. Hurting others, while at times EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL for my targets, feels good to me. Therefore hurting them MUST be a good thing, right?"

"No - no, no, noononononono..." She stammered. "P-please..."

She begged him to stop, but he only flogged her a second time, making her twist and shake and drawing out her breath. "They're not me, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a victimless crime. Don't you think so, too?"

"No - no, stop, no!"

He hit her with it again, each blow felt as if her body was being carved up with a buzzsaw. "You see, this nice little toy draws its power from the guilt of the people it strikes. If you were fully convinced that the path you're considering is a good one, you wouldn't feel a thing." He struck her again. "SO DO YOU!" Knowing it wouldn't help, just out of sheer desperation, the trembling deer tried to wrestle herself out of the cuffs and ropes holding her. "Yes, struggle, that only makes it even more enjoyable."

"No! please, stop!"

He leaned over her and spoke with a glee that he had long anticipated putting on display. "But dear Noelle, it feels so good, therefore IT MUST BE GOOD, RIGHT?" He struck her again immediately, throwing her off from any attempts at freeing herself.

"No! No..."

"I can't hear you, can you speak up a little bit? Because all I can hear IS HOW GOOD THIS FEELS. IF IT FEELS GOOD, IT IS GOOD AND RIGHT, RIGHT?"

"No! No it's..."

"IF IT FEELS GOOD, IT IS GOOD!" And he struck her again. "IF YOU BELIEVE IT, SAY IT! IF IT FEELS GOOD, IT IS GOOD."

"No..."

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

"NO!"

" 'No' what, exactly?"

She was already past the point of tears, the pain was so much, him not adding more of it didn't make it subside. "N-no. It's not good."

"IT'S NOT GOOD IF WHAT?" He did it again.

She screamed off the top of her lungs: "It's not good even if it feels good!"

At last, for once, the devil answered without sending more waves of pain through her. "Finally, a little epiphany. And all it took was a few minutes of torture. Perfect timing, too. Because you've arrived at your destination." He took a few steps away from her, and then closed that gap again, one step for each word he spoke. "It. Is. Time. To wake. Up." He slapped her face with the back of his hand.

* * *

With a sudden shock, she woke up. Wrapped in her warm red robe, under the skies of the dark world. Noelle struggled and pedaled about in panic. She was on the same wagon she had been with the devil, back when she looked into his mirror. But the devil was gone. "Hey! Hey!" She was grabbed and held in place by what turned out to be Dasher. The archer was the only person at this wagon. "What's gotten into you?"

"Where is he?" She pulled together and looked around in search of her torturer.

"Who?"

"The d- Donnie. Where is he?"

Dasher's expression softened up. "He's long gone. You fell asleep not long after we headed out. He and his sins left the moment we arrived. Speaking of which, welcome to Carpentown." Ahead of the large fleet of chariots, wagons and carriages, lay a town much bigger than Tiller Town. With buildings set up in all manner of different shapes, some simple, some outright artistic. All of them made out of wood.

"N-no." She struggled even with him. "I didn't just fall asleep he - he did something." She refused to believe that this was all just a dream. It fall felt much too real to be a dream.

"Did what?"

She stopped. "I'm...I'm not sure. But he - I..."

She was held in place again by the archer. "Look, I will tell the guards to keep him away if he comes back, all right? You can stay here if you're still a little freaked out. Me and Ralsei will come with the Emperor and see if we can get an audience with the Empress. Right now, the guards aren't letting any of us in. You get some more rest and wake up for real. We'll see if we can get entry to Carpentown."

She found it reassuring that they had things covered so she could unwind and wrap her head around what she had just been through.

The people in the other wagons looked tense, but not shaken up enough to believe they had just witnessed someone getting flogged. So as far as anyone could tell out here, nothing actually happened, after she looked in Donnie's mirror. It was a vision, just like he said. It only felt so real, as if she had really been there.

Just sitting in here wasn't going to do much for her to unwind. She got up to stretch her legs and walk around a bit. The villagers from Tiller Town were all still here. She saw one come back to their family's wagon here and there, angered about being denied protection by the Empress' guards.

The Emperor wasn't here, he had gone ahead with Dasher. But as she wandered around between the wagons, something relating to him caught her eye. Next to the emperor's golden riksha, the man tasked with steering it leaned against a tree. He stood out to everything around him in the same way she and Kris usually did. He was fully visible as though he were in a well-lit place even when he was in the shadow of a tree, under a night sky.

A human with black hair and with skin in nearly as dark a shade of blue as Noelle's fur. He wore baggy white trousers and his chest was covered only in a wide assortment of long jeweled chains and gold and pearl necklaces. His lips had a conspicuous, contrasting shade of red and he had a red symbol involving a reverse arc and a dot in the middle, painted upon his forehead.

What drew Noelle to him, was the calming song he played on his bansuri, a little side-ways operated flute from the middle east. When she came into his field of view, he raised his eyebrows and stopped playing. "Wait, no, go on."

The blue human chuckled. "You like it? I can play a little more." He did so for a few more minutes. "Hello. I - I'm uh..." He stopped and looked around as if trying to come up with a name. Then he raised his flute again. "This must look like a piccolo flute to you...Piccolo. Call me Piccolo."

"All right...Piccolo."

"Say, you seem terribly worn out for someone who has been asleep for so long."

She tried to laugh off his assessment. "Yeah, I had a really bad nightmare."

'Piccolo' put his flute away for good and offered her his hand. "Say, we both have some short respite. Why don't we take a nice, relaxing trip while you tell me everything about it."

Maybe it was something about his refreshing, almost flirtatious tone in his voice, maybe the reason was that Noelle recognized who this 'Piccolo' was, but it left her smiling. "Do I have a choice?"

Piccolo took his hand back and placed both of them on his hips. "As a matter of fact, no you don't."

Aside from the wagons, there were no walls, everything out here was open. He led the way to the side, to an inland lake near the town. Piccolo stood to the edge of the water and pointed towards the lake with an open hand. Noelle was shaken enough to stumble backwards when suddenly the water parted and two giant snakes rose up from the depths.

They slithered onto the surface and coiled themselves around one another, forming a huge circular platform out of their bodies. They left an opening in the middle, from which a giant flower sprung up and spread its pink petals out over the entirety of the snakes' bodies. "No reason to worry. The serpents bend to my will." The human got onto the strange surface and once a few steps onto one of the petals, sat down with his legs crossed. He patted the surface next to him, signaling her to come onto the serpentine platform.

She was surprised at how solid it was when she stepped on to it. Walking on its surface was easier than expected. Once there, she even made efforts to sit down the way he did. "So, tell me about this nightmare of yours. It couldn't have been that bad."

"It was!" She began retelling it, but kept to vagaries to not involve him any further than she had to.

The only part where she got specific, was how within her vision, Donatien posed as her therapist, played along with how no-one except Noelle could see the monster, gave her pills that made the monster more dangerous telling her they did the opposite, and how he flogged her with a scourge once the vision was over. "Phew, a lot to unpack here. He certainly seems to have some justifiable anger. "

"I just don't understand why he would do all this to me."

"'Doing' things to you is a strong way of wording it, don't you think?"

"Huh?"

"For a start, do you have any wounds to show where he hurt you?" She reached under her robe, to the place on her stomach where he kept hitting her. There were no wounds, no scars, nothing. It was as though none of it had happened. So she shook her head.

"Then all he did was leave behind a memory of something that never occurred and a future that hasn't happened...yet. That aside, this doesn't sound like he was just taking things out on you. In fact it seems more like it was all constructed in an elaborate way to tell you something. He showed you a future certainly wouldn't want, caused by a decision you currently want to make. And to highlight the mistakes that led to it, he made the victims of your decisionmaking haunt you for the rest of that vision."

His defense of what Donnie did, left Noelle in distress. "This...no. If he was just trying to tell me something, why would he make it so awful?"

"As he would put it, all he did was hold up a mirror and the thing you're taking issue with, is what you saw when looking into it. Sure, his methods may not be the most comforting, but resolving personal issues rarely is."

"You're starting to sound like him!"

Piccolo laughed. "Maybe that's because we see eye to eye. We merely differ in how we convey things. But even the devil himself, in all his pretenses and attempts to torment you, is doing it for your sake. It just might not seem that way, because his way of helping you, is to show things you're not comfortable with. All he did, was show you that a future with that 'new' flame of yours won't be as rosy as you make it out to be. You need to see the positive here, because I think you don't appreciate how much of a favor he has done you."

With a swipe of his hand through the air, he conjured faint images, drawn from Noelle's vision. "The future he showed you hasn't happened...yet. You can still make a better choice in your life and avoid it entirely. By letting you indulge your current errors within the realm of imagination, he has granted you a second chance at a good life. It would have been more cruel to not show it to you and let you walk right into it, headfirst, with no way of going back. Now, thanks to him, you have an opportunity to make a serious change to where you're headed. Most people in your shoes aren't so lucky."

Explaining her all this left her melancholic and zoned out, so he grabbed her to shake her a bit. "Hey, I know that's a bit much to take in, but still, you've got to see the positive. Things don't have to go exactly like in your vision, right? You can just make a better decision ahead of time."

"It's just...I'm afraid. I get what you're saying, I know where you're going with this, but in so many movies and games, I saw the opposite. People choosing to be with someone they can start a family with and not being happy, and people choosing someone like the 'new' person, and being happy."

The blue human laughed. "Art isn't always a faithful reflection of life. Especially high budget art with a lot of vested interests making it possible, is not so much a benevolent guiding hand, but rather a paid advertisement, for decisions profitable to who paid for its creation. But those decisions they advertise are rarely beneficial to the person making them, or society as a whole." He tipped her nose with his soft, round finger. "It's time you looked less to 'woke' movies, books or games for ideas of the world, and used your own mind to make sense of it yourself."

"I mean...how would I even start? Finding this 'better' path?"

"Well from what I heard, the devil seemed to imply that you already knew someone for that, and simply turned away from him. Or considered turning away. You could simply change your mind on that matter."

"Yeah, there was someone. I thought we had something. I kept waiting for him to make it something. But he never did. I figured we really were just friends."

Piccolo giggled again: "Little one, if he is a better match for you than that 'new' one - if he is the least bit like you, I'd wager he's a rather timid person. Did you ever consider that if he feels the same way about you, he might be as scared to take that step forward as you are? Maybe all it takes, is a little encouragement. A little signal, subtle enough to deny it, but direct enough to reach out to him."

A new, cold breeze rushed by them and prompted Noelle to wrap her robe a little more tightly around herself. "Are you sure things will work out if I try this?"

Piccolo gave her a confident smile. "I am certain of it. The devil showed you the path you intended to take, and he had no qualms laying out that this trail leaves you to become nothing but dust in the wind. But a better path would see to you finding fulfillment in life, happiness, comfort..." He raised his hand and above them, the dark of the sky tore itself open for bright, golden light to shine upon them.

Within the bright sky he created, she saw images of herself cooking, tending to a home, holding children in her arms, reading stories to them, and in the arms of a familiar face. Smiling with a visible happiness she wished she could say she had now. "...and most importantly, a legacy for the ages. Like a god tending to the world through his avatars, you will leave your mark upon it through your descendants."

The bright sky revealed by the rift in the air above them filled itself with faces and profiles of all kinds of monsters. Men, women, boys, girls, monsters in all shapes and sizes, dressed as though from different times and places, but all of them had antlers.

Then, the rays of light hanging out of the rift in the sky like strings pulled themselves back in, and the rift closed, allowing the dark to settle over them again. The blue stranger raised one finger. "But that goes only for if you HAVE descendants to begin with. In order for that to unfold, you must make use of that second chance you got. And make it count. Now go. It looks like something over there is stirring."

Noelle could tell what he meant. In the distance, she could see the Emperor, Ralsei and Dasher coming back with a few of their servants. It was best if she hurried to join them. Half-way off the flower petals, she turned back to Piccolo. "Thank you. For everything."

He said nothing. He didn't even bother to get up. But when she had fully gotten off the platform he erected from the water, he took up a meditative pose. The sky parted above him again, filling the area with the same golden light as before. Except the rift opened up much more widely. Piccolo closed his eyes, and the flower and snakes rose up out of the lake, into the sky, and vanished through the rift.

Then the rest of the lake poured itself into the sky and through the rift as well and the grassland beneath appeared as unaffected as though nothing had been here. The rift closed itself behind it all. Leaving only drops of water to give any indication of him - or that entire lake - having been here.


	34. Roses and Clover

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 22

Roses and Clover

* * *

This didn't feel right. Susie tried to relax and remember what Berdly told them. But wherever she went, it didn't work in keeping her calm at all. Every wall she rested against, every elevated stone brick she sat on, she always felt uncomfortable and unable to relax. But what could you do? She went back to some of her old habits. In the less savory neighbourhood near where she lived, there was this old guy who would get upset whenever there was some slight noise.

And near where he lived, there was a trash container where someone regularly dumped all his empty cans. Susie liked to mess with the old guy by grabbing a load of those empty cans and throwing them onto the wall on the old guy's porch. And there that fat old crocodile came out. Dressed in nothing but a tank top and shorts. "Darn reptiles, get away from my property!"

That got old pretty fast as well. Nothing really captivated her like the thoughts of what was going on in the dark world. Wandering back and forth between her part of town and the center of hometown, she often wound up stopping and sitting down on benches, sighing, wondering what kind of exciting battles Kris was getting into. And Ralsei.

Many times she zoned out, imagined if she was there. Whatever hurdles they had to overcome, she imagined all kinds of ways this could go, if she was there to help. If there were enemies, they were definitely going to try to befriend them. If they couldn't, she could have just beaten the hell out of them. If she was there. If only she was there.

Time went by with her fantasizing about adventures that would never happen, until it started to get dark. She began to realize how stressed out she was over all this for the last few hours, from how tired she was getting. Maybe it really was for the best to call it a day. She went back home and quickly slipped into the bathroom to hide away for the time being. If she had already washed, that was one less excuse for her mother to call her out of her room.

When she opened the bathroom door though, her heart sank. Between her and the exit door stood a sinister-looking, obese dragoness. Her mother had very clear intent to have one of her serious talks with her, and left no room to escape through the front door. "Susan Abigail Darkshadow!"

She stomped Susie's way, every step shaking the floor under her weight and grabbed her by the collar. Making conscious efforts to put her teeth on display while addressing her. "What did you do?" She didn't respond. "What did you do? I knew something was fishy from the get-go!" She lifted Susie up and slammed her against the doorframe. "I didn't believe for one second that you had a 'friend'."

She tried loosening some of her mother's grip with her own hands. "Why not? Ma - maybe I changed!"

She roared with such a strength it blew against her, along with the stench of her breath. "YOU'RE A LOST CAUSE. I gave up on you improving, long ago. People don't change, just like that. And that 'playing card' shit, you think I'm stupid?" With one hand, she grabbed Susie by the throat and choked her. She tried asking what was going on, but she could barely breathe, let alone do that. "For two days, you start acting weird, and then two kids from your class disappear! You've got something to do with it, don't you? Spit it out!"

She choked Susie too much. She couldn't breathe. She tried saying 'Let go', but it never vocally carried over. Not loudly enough for her mother to register at least. "I'm starting to get fed up with you! You know I could just mangle your face so easily if wanted to! Remind you who's got the bigger teeth around here."

Susie reached for her mother's hand in an attempt to struggle free, but all that accomplished, was that her mother started using both hands to hold her up by her throat, bare her teeth and move in closer. Wind her jaws over Susie's face, bring herself in position to carve the scales off the right side of her face and rip out her right eye.

Susie begged for her to stop, and especially when she felt one of her mother's teeth dig into her upper eye-socket along the side of her eyeball, her attempts to break free grew all the more erratic. But the only reason she could feel this, without her eye getting dug into or being ripped out, was that her mother stopped there, and then pulled back again. "Not this time." She let Susie go, leaving her to drop onto the floor and too dizzy to get up.

"One of these days I'll actually do it. If this falls back on me somehow, I really will. Now get to your room. I don't want to see you right now." It was over as quickly as it had started, but it didn't hurt any less. Susie's mother retreated back onto her recliner and Susie crawled into her room. Sobbing half-way through. She only dared to get up when she had crawled far enough that she wasn't in her mother's sight. Just like that, an already bad day was ruined completely.

She held tight onto her cushion. She was scared of letting confrontations with her mother happen. They were a dire reminder that there was nowhere safe to go in her life. In school, there were all the students, waiting for an opportunity to get the jump on her, teachers breathing down her neck over every infraction. And at home, there was Mom.

She couldn't trust anyone, every place she went with anyone she knew around, was a hazard. There was only one exception she could think of. The dark world. Especially when they fought Jevil. Kris leading her and Ralsei by the hand, past all his attacks, somehow just knowing where to go at any times. For once in her life, someone proved that she could trust them.

She wanted this again. Why was she excluded from all things dark world? She wanted the safety of having someone she could trust nearby back. If Kris and Noelle showed up again, Susie swore to herself that she would not allow any room for her to miss the next time a portal to the dark world opened. All she could hope for, was that on the next morning, Kris and Noelle would be back.

But even after her dreamless sleep, even after she dragged her way to school, things didn't go back to normal like last time. They got even weirder. When she went up to the classroom, the lights were on. She made sure to get here early, and yet everyone was already here and in their seats. Including Noelle, even including Mrs. Alphys, but not including Kris. "Uh - good morning?"

Berdly and Noelle nodded her way. "Good morning. Where've you been?"

She made her way to her spot. Berdly and Noelle even went out of their way to turn their chairs just so they could face her. In face, everyone in class was looking at her. "At home, I guess?"

The deer girl giggled. "No, silly, we mean yesterday."

"...at school? You were there."

Everyone she could see shook their heads. "We were all there, but you weren't. Are you sure you didn't oversleep or something?"

Susie's scales began to feel itchy. What was going on? "No? I was at school yesterday! Stop it with this weird - whatever you guys are doing!"

Berdly rolled his eyes. "Oh my goodness, you are one more hopeless case than I thought." He picked out his phone. "What date do you think it is?" She told him. "Nope, check again." He showed her the display and pointed at the date. "See?" Something was wrong. It wasn't the next morning, it was two days later.

"Wait - that makes no sense..." She wasn't sure what to make of this.

Berdly took a moment to pick up on it before it occurred to him. "Wait a second..." When it did though, he laughed. "Did you oversleep for a full day? What messed up sleep-schedule do you have?" Everyone around began to laugh. "And of all days yesterday, too. First you're so obsessed with the dark world and then when things get serious, you don't even show up."

Wait, did he just mention the dark world, in front of everyone? "Woah there, I don't know what he's on about, you guys."

"We all know about the dark world."

Jocks, Monster Kid, no-one seemed confused about this at all. Not even Temmie. "yayA! in d4rk w0rlz tem hav lah2urr b33mz!"

"You all went to the dark world?"

Kid shook their head. "Nope, not all of us. After all the trips to the dark world, the Knight attacked us, Kris led the charge and we beat him. All the dark world stuff's over now."

That last part cast a cold shower over Susie's back. She needed a moment to wrap her head around all this. "Wait, okay, so who of you guys HAVE been to the dark world?" Slowly, Berdly raised his hand. Then Noelle. Then Mrs. Alphys laughed awkwardly and raised her hand as well. "Wait, aren't you a little old for that?"

Then a thick, clawed hand tipped her shoulder from behind. Squashed into the desk behind her, was Kris' father. Mr. Dreemurr sat in Kris' place, but Kris wasn't there. And what was more, Mr. Dreemurr was holding up his hand. "You? You're not even in this class! What are you doing here?" Asgore smiled and shrugged, but he didn't so much as open his mouth. "But how do the rest of you know about the dark world anyway?"

Noelle answered that one. "The Knight brought the dark world here and attacked us. And then Kris led us all into battle and we defeated him together."

"And all this happened yesterday?"

Everyone nodded. "Everyone was there except you."

Again, this was all a little much to take in all at once, so she lost track of the essentials for a moment. "Wait...where is Kris anyway?"

Berdly raised an eyebrow. "Where do you think? We just graduated yesterday after the whole thing. He's getting ready to go to university right now. Look, there he is!"

She got up to get a better look through the window in the back of the classroom. A bus stood on the street, empty save for the driver. And loaded with several bags and suitcases, there was Kris, struggling his way up the stairs. She opened the window to call for him. "Hey, Kris! Wait up!" He didn't react to her. Maybe he was too distracted with how much trouble his excessive luggage was giving him, maybe he was just too far away and didn't hear her.

She missed him. She missed everything. When it all started dawning on her, it began to wear down on her from the inside. It physically felt as if she was being pulled down. By her own inaction nonetheless. She jumped up from the wall, ran out of the classroom, down the hallway and onto the street outside. "Kris! Wait!". But it was too late. He couldn't hear her, as he was already inside, the door was shut behind him and the bus was leaving. An uneasiness overcame her that made her face tremble just enough for herself to be able to feel it.

The only friend she made was now gone, and they weren't going to hang out. She wasn't even sure how to get in touch with him. Now slowly, Mr. Dreemurr followed her outside. She was left stammering. "He's...he's gone."

Asgore met her eyes with a smile. "Don't worry. He still comes to visit us on holidays and between semesters. You two will meet again in no time."

She sure didn't feel this way. She tried to take his words to heart. In the following days - then weeks - then months - she lost count of how many times she stopped by the bus stop to see if the bus Kris used to go to university with had been there, or asked the Dreemurrs if he'd come back yet. Her life had stopped moving forward on that last day of school.

Eventually, she asked when he was going to come home, and Mrs. Dreemurr just told her that Kris came home a week ago. By the time she asked though, he had already gone back to campus and wasn't coming back for several more months. As the months passed, she fessed up to it. He was gone. All of high school life just rushed past her and she had nothing to show for it. Throughout all of high school, she only ever managed to make one friend. And now, he was gone forever.

Maybe he was never aware that she wanted a friend. After all, she never made any efforts to seek one out. Maybe if she had paid more attention, if she had made efforts to hang out with Kris when she still could, he would have known and taken the time to visit her. Now he - and life as a whole - had flown by her.

One more time, she made her way into the broken apartment she was doomed to spend the rest of her life in. Went to the bathroom to look herself in her stupid, pink face. "Well done. I hope you're happy with yourself." Driven by a sudden urge, she punched the mirror and broke it into countless pieces, cutting her fingers in the process. It did make her feel a little better, but now the mirror was broken, and she was going to get trouble for that, too.

Once she had calmed down, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the dirty tiles on the floor. She took some time to try to process what she had lost and missed. And even after spending who knew how much time just sitting there, she came to no new insights. There was nothing left to figure out. It was all just over.

She thought and knew the same things she did back when she stood outside the school. Maybe, in another life, if she had just been nice to Kris and spent time with him, he would have taken the time to visit her. Hang out with her. She wasn't sure what, anything. Now all there was, was a painful void in her chest, that she knew there was no way to fill.

Maybe in another life, things wouldn't be this way, but in this one it was. She didn't like the thought of crossing that bathroom door back into the apartment and risking running into her mother. But this was her life. She had to face it.

What eventually stirred her from being frozen with her eyes glued to the floor, was the sound of music. Slowly emerging from the background noise of the building, she heard a choir of women sing. And it sounded as if it came from inside the apartment. Did her mother come home and put on some unusual music?

She got up, unlocked the bathroom door and went through, back into the rest of her mom's place. While still laced with the static of outdated music records, the singing was now clear enough to discern the lyrics. "...I'm so alone. Don't have nobody to call my own. Please turn on your magic beam, Mr. Sandman bring me a dream!"

She could only move one step past the door out the bathroom, as familiar beige, heavily decorated walls blocked her path any further past it. She was taken by surprise when the door slammed itself shut behind her, and spinning around like this, she realized that she was in a corridor. A corridor with a familiar, highly detailed painting depicting some religious iteration of 'hell'. It took her a few moments to realize it. "Motherf-"

With a distinct clicking, the music turned off. To her side, black clouds appeared in the air of the hallway, grew thicker and converged before blowing away, revealing the owner of the hotel she was in. In his usual formal white attire. Dr. Luxon smiled with his face turned back to it's normal black goat monster self and tipped his tophat at Susie.

"Susan! Welcome back, what a pleasant surprise." He had an umbrella in his hand that was so soaked with water, he must have witnessed some giant storm with it. He let go of it and it dispersed into black smoke before vanishing completely.

She pointed at the devil and dug her claw into his white shirt. "You lied to me! Kris and Berdly were in the dark world and met you! This IS the dark world."

The dealmaker stepped back and shrugged. "Don't put the blame on me. I am but a humble hotel owner. I was merely making inferences based on the very things you told me. Speaking of which, standing around in this empty corridor must be such a bother." He withdrew and opened the door behind him, leading the way back into the big, loaded hotel room from last time. The 'Suite for the Longing'.

With swinging motions in every step, the goat man rushed to his chair and summoned his pen and clipboard. "Do take a seat. It can only have been a day or two since you last were here. How has your day been treating you?" For a moment, she wanted to keep pressing him on his lie, but the thought of lying down and getting stuff off her chest was too tempting. She sighed and took up her place on the sofa. "So?"

"I know what you did, you know."

"And that would be?"

"They had a whole city there and you destroyed all of it."

The devil shrugged. "I was merely keeping my end of a bargain that - mind you - those two younglings were not a party to." He summoned a pair of glasses - entirely for effect - and cleaned them with a handkerchief. "I take my deals very seriously."

She took a moment to make herself comfortable and lay on her back with her head rested on her hands. "So, what is it now, you've got to be real if Kris and Berdly met you. So is this a dream and I just dream stuff that exists in the dark world, or did I somehow get zapped here?"

The devil shrugged again. "Between the two of us, you're the lightner, not me. You know more about what the light world is supposed to be like, and have everything needed to make a judgement on that. Why don't we find out together? Tell me about your day. Go back to parts of it of which you know for certain that they were not part of a dream. Better yet, go as far back as possible. What do you remember happening after I gave you that little shock?"

"I...I woke up. I woke up, so I thought it was a dream. But it can't be if Kris and Berdly know you." She continued telling him everything that happened in the light world, up to when she and Berdly gave up looking for Kris and Noelle. "So then I went home." She stopped. She preferred skipping the next part. "And then I went to bed. And the next morning I had the weirdest day ever. School was over, Noelle was back but Kris was already going to college."

"College? As in university? The Kris I saw couldn't be older than fifteen or - at most - sixteen. But even that's a stretch. Don't you think he's a little young to go to college? Don't you think a little more preparation in a secondary school would be in order before treading the scary waters of higher education?"

"I mean yeah, that's part of why it's so weird. And his dad was at school, warming his seat, even though he didn't fit in it and Kris wasn't coming back anyway. Oh and everyone had seen the Knight and a lot of them had been to the dark world. All of it without me. And after that - I really wanted to hang out with Kris - because we were friends you know - but the months just went by like they were nothing and I..." She slowed down towards the end. "I missed him. No matter what I tried I never met him again."

Throughout her narration, the shrink was taking notes, which he seemed to come to an end with now. "You make it sound as though that bothered you. A lot."

"Well, duh. We're friends. I really wanted to hang out."

"Why not give him a phone call? I do recall you saying you kept him in place to exchange numbers. I noted it down because you seem like the kind of person to do anything they can to push people away, and this was a deviation from that. Active efforts to keep contact. You wanted to keep contact and were not afraid of letting him know. Clearly a development - an improvement on the issues that bring you here. But that aside - point being, you clearly had his number."

"Well I...I...I didn't think of it. Why didn't I think of that?"

The black goat chuckled. "Susan, dear. Here's one theory. You had your two or three realistic and - somewhat ordinary - days. Then you went to bed and you haven't woken up since. That 'last day of school' was so strange, because your hormone-addled mind cooked it up with ingredients drawn from your thoughts and fears. Those months afterwards went by so quickly, because they never. Really. Happened. You're still in bed from after you came home from your search for your missing classmates. Your descriptions got a lot more hazy from there, so we can assume everything up to that point actually occurred."

Susie covered as much of her mouth as she could with her hands. "Oh god, Mom, then that - fuck."

For a few seconds, the room fell silent. "I beg your pardon?" the shrink eventually asked.

"What?"

"You just said something about your mother. Is there some detail you left out?"

"No."

"Then why would you bring her up? It really sounds like there's something worth talking about. Especially with young, malleable minds, parents are crucial to-"

"No!"

Dr. Luxon kept his mouth shut, but gave off a demonstrative snort. "Fine." He announced his next notation. "'Mother, questionmark." And circled it several times. Then he sighed. "So, several pages. Those were quite the days you've had, even the ones that were real. And still, you found your way back here. So what issue brought you here the first time, hasn't been resolved yet."

"Well, duh. I never really made it to the dark world."

"Technically you did. Twice by now."

"With Kris I mean...I mean the normal way. You know, portal and all that."

"And for a lightner with a whole, very bright world to walk out into, you seem rather obsessed with our not so bright world down here. Which brings me back to where we left off last time. You said you feel safer in the dark world, in spite of there being no danger in the light world as far as I can tell. It does sound like knowingly or unknowingly, you want to hide from something in the dark world, but you failed to mention what that is."

Susie groaned and shifted around to face the back side of the couch. "Refusing to face your issues won't do anything to resolve them, Susan." He gave it some time to see if she would answer, and then sighed when he realized she wouldn't. "Back to our coping mechanisms I'm guessing. So, you really really want to visit the dark world, why? Take some time to formulate your response and make it short and to the point."

She did. But what she came up with was: "That first time was the best time I'd had in - I don't even know how long. Maybe forever."

"Mhm. So an adventure in the dark world is what you crave so much. That's why it's the suite for the longing that you wind up in. You really want to escape from the hardships of reality, into the comforting arms of your precious dark world adventure."

"Well, duh." Even Susie could tell this was an awkward way of putting it.

The devil's sudden grin widened. "How badly do you want this?"

At the first sign of hope, Susie pushed herself back up and faced him. "A lot."

The dealmaker dispelled his clipboard and pen and leaned forward, resting his head on his hands. "Is that so? As chance would have it, a new opportunity has opened up for you to get exactly what you desire. And I am willing to offer it to you as part of a special deal. The kind of deal I usually don't make. Here it is in summary. You will get a prime chance at the dark world adventure you desire. But of course, one hand washes the other. I want something in return. Only this time, you get to know ahead of time, what that is."

Her excitement immediately waned at the mention of a catch. "Uh huh? And what would that be?"

"Things have occurred since your last visit, that have piqued my interest in one of those new friends you made in the dark world. His name is Ralsei. The prince without a king, the ruler of an empty kingdom. I will ensure that you get the dark world adventure you desire, but your part of the bargain is that you venture out both in the dark world and the light world, to seek out anything you can find out about him. Any secrets he might be hiding."

"I don't think he's got any big secrets. He's just a lonely little goof."

The devil wagged his finger at her. "Young lady, for a start, he spent the majority of his time with you in disguise. Cloaked and altered his appearance with an enchanted hat which he never took off until the very end. Speaking of, try to think back, you're the only one between us who has seen his real face. What can you tell me about what you saw?"

She leaned back and tried to remember. "See...he looked all soft and wimpy. But I already knew he was, it's just he was...more soft than when he had his hat on. He had a more round face. And bigger eyelashes. And his horns were red-ish and the wrong way round. Boss monster horns are supposed to be more like yours except white, but his weren't. But still, he's just a little goofball. Not someone with big secrets."

Dr. Luxon shook his head. "Are you sure about this? He already alters his appearance with an enchanted hat, and wears a robe at all times. For all you know, the robe is enchanted as well, meaning he alters his appearance AND his voice. He never allowed you to enter his castle, you don't really know what he looks like, nor do you know with certainty what he sounds like. What exactly DO you know about him? Not an awful lot it seems. That, I want to change."

"Wait, that's it? All I have to do is try to find out stuff about Ralsei?"

The devil got up and offered her his hand. "Yes, that is the deal. You get a chance to find happiness in the arms of your dark world adventure. And in return, you will seek out any information you can find about the prince, and tell me of your findings the next time we meet."

She stared at that hand of his for a few seconds, but soon got up to shake it. "We got a deal. Finding out new stuff can't hurt. So how do we get to the dark world?"

Samuel clapped his hands and went for the door. "Well, technically, we already are in the dark world. The trick is to get you to where your adventure is. He spun around to face her by the time he arrived at the golden elevator. "BUT, luckily for you, this hotel has been moved and we are not that far off."

"Say what now? How can a hotel move?"

"You lightners are capable of many miracles, especially when you are the least aware of yourselves making them happen. That wasn't the only miracle. Look here." He spun another full circle and took off his top hat. Susie braced herself for the shock of seeing that disturbing blurb his face really was again, but this time, that wasn't what followed.

His fur and horns turned white, the glow of his eyes and mouth faded, but now he had an actual ordinary boss monster face. And one that Susie recognized as well. "That's Kris' brother's face." She hadn't recognized his voice, but she couldn't really remember hearing Asriel talk much, she only knew his face from photos and seeing him from afar.

"Marvelous, don't you think? I am so beautiful now. All by the hands of lightners like yourself. Whatever you did after we last met, it has worked wonders for me." When the elevator doors opened, the devil tip-toed ahead of her. "And no, I am not Asriel, but you're not the first person to compare me to him. Apparently, the similarity is too uncanny to ignore. BUT, that should not distract you from the task at hand. The object of your attention should be the prince, not me."

When the elevator arrived at the top, he opened the path straight outside, into a blue-lit house, and onto the dark walls and pavement outside. "The prince that rules this now not-so-empty kingdom."

Right outside the little house the hotel's exit door had led to, was Castle Town, Ralsei's kingdom. But that made no sense, the last time she was at that hotel, that same exit door led to a giant restaurant. How did they end up here? "Wait...what?" The hotel's exit door apparently led right into the 'Inn' on the road to the castle.

"Questions over questions, and I want you to focus on answering them. The answer lies with my apparent new ruler. Find out anything you can. Why does he obscure his face? What is he hiding under that robe? He looks like a Boss Monster, too. Is he like me? In what ways? Is he modeled after Asriel, too? If so, how and why? If not, who else is the 'Asriel' to his 'Samuel'? Questions over questions over questions. Who can blame me for wanting to know a little more?"

"Yeah, I guess. So how does this work?"

"Come along." He led her down the road, to big golden door to the south. "The doors to his kingdom can be adjusted to lead anywhere we want them to. It's how you managed to get to the Card Kingdom from here in the first place, even though Castle Town is nowhere near the Card Kingdom. This town actually floats above the Kingdom of Taint, a place your friends were at just a while ago. They appear to have crossed an ocean since then."

The devil pulled out his phone to check something on it and then drew a circle in the air with his hand, leaving trails of light in its wake which connected to the door. For a few moments, he slowed down. "Curious, I have more freedom to move it about now. Whatever blocked it off before, appears to have been removed. I'll bring us as close to the human as I can."

When he opened the gate, it led onto a wide field of grass, shining blue in the dark of an eternal night. A little ahead of them was was a little trampled area around a barn. No farm or house next to it, just a wooden barn in the middle of nowhere. "You sure this is right? I can't see Kris anywhere."

"It is the last location he stayed at for long enough for me to pick up. Which was very recent. If he isn't here now, he must have just left." As the clueless dragon stepped onto the grass, the goat stepped back behind the door. "Just look around, I'm sure you'll find some manner of a clue. Have fun." As soon as he was on the other side of the doors, they began to close again.

"Hey, hey wait!" The moment Susie turned around, the devil held out his arm. From his palm, he cast a beam of light so bright, Susie whinged and held up her arms to cover herself. By the time the beam grew more narrow and vanished, the doors were closed and all she could do was bang her fist against the unrelenting rock door, which soon vanished into thin air. Leaving her alone and with nothing to do, but figure this out on her own.


	35. Chasing the Dream

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 23

Chasing the Dream

* * *

Being sent through the golden gate from Ralsei's kingdom left Susie standing on an open plain, in front of the flattened compound surrounding a barn. A barn with nothing around it, in the middle of nowhere. The door back to Castle Town was gone, too. It must have materialized out of nowhere when Dr. Luxon opened it and vanished the same way when he closed it again.

Further ahead, on the open ground, something big lied on the ground. Big and purple. And with a long body of brown hair covering it. It was a monster with the same colours Susie had in the light world. "What the hell?" And a face that looked a lot like her own as well. But it wasn't her. It couldn't be. And she had her head cut off. Why was there blood and a body? Why didn't she just disperse into dust like a monster?

And besides that, it didn't look exactly like her. This 'dead Susie' was quite a bit taller than her, had the fully grown tail of an adult dragon monster, as well as the physique of a bodybuilder. Bulging muscles everywhere and little to no clothes to hide any of them either.

It took her a while to notice, as she thought the smell of blood came from the body, but there was another trail of it, a few steps away. And it followed a strict path around a corner and into the barn. What or whoever killed 'her', retreated in there. She summoned her devilsknife and slowly approached the entrance.

She rested her weapon over her shoulder, ready to pull and swing it down at whoever she encountered at any time. Though all she saw inside were open enclosures. Slowly and carefully, she entered. Every step of the way, she turned around to check for corners she hadn't checked before. There was no-one there. Just stacks of hay.

After being in here for long enough, she realized the trail of blood led into the first enclosure left of the front entrance and just stopped there. Whoever it came from must have gotten some rest here until they recovered. She walked into it to look for clues. Maybe they left something behind that could give her an idea on what happened here and where Kris was.

But there wasn't anything in this one either, just a really big pile of straw. If they were getting some rest, they probably weren't sitting right on top of this pile, but the more comfortable patches around it. So she stopped here and rummaged through the hay. In search of anything they might have left behind. She froze when she heard something rustle.

Something surged out of the big haystack and hit the side of her face with enough of a force to send her stumbling back into the area in the middle of the barn and fall on the ground. It was a fist, and now the person it belonged to, freed herself from the haystack she had been hiding in.

The confusion was what kept Susie in place. The person that punched her in the face was Susie. Same clothes, same colours. Scales piercing through the dark in the same bright magenta, same hair, same everything. But that made no sense, she was Susie. Who was this? "What the hell?"

'Susie' raised her scythe - she had the exact same kind of devilsknife Susie had. "I knew she'd send someone to finish - wait..." The impostor Susie came closer but stopped when she stood above Susie. "Wait a second, he was right! There are more of me!" She became visibly angry. Susie, still too confused to do much, shuffled away. "Was she saving you for later? To get rid of me and replace me? Is that it?"

"Who is 'she'? Wait - who are you?"

"Playing dumb, are we?" The fake Susie stepped on Susie's scythe so she couldn't raise it, and rushed to wind her arm around Susie's throat, trapping her in a tight grip she couldn't escape from. She couldn't just bite it either since her snout was too long for that. Susie's apparent doppelganger dragged her out of the building by the throat, far enough out onto the open area for a run for the barn to not be an option, and then tossed her to the ground. "If you thought this was gonna be easy, you got another thing coming."

Now, Susie had snapped out of the shock enough to get up and give 'herself' a good look. Something about the impostor that stuck out, was that she had a white ribbon woven around a lock of her hair and bound into a double loop. When the impostor took note of Susie staring at it, she covered it with one hand. "Nope! You're gonna have to try a little harder if you want that!"

Reaching around with her opposite arm though, stretched it enough for her to suddenly twinge. She had a deep wound in her shoulder and stretching the way she did seemed to tear at it a bit. "What - what happened to you?" The fake nodded off to the side. Where that lifeless heap of muscle still lay. So whoever or whatever that body-builder-Susie was, injured her.

The wound was slowly closing, but it was still fresh enough to not have healed shut. "Playing dumb won't get you anywhere. You wanna take me down? You wanna have this?" She raised her weapon one more time and roared at her with her conspicuously big teeth on full display. "Then come and get it!" Susie summoned her scythe back into her hands. Which startled the impostor. "Wait - how did you do that?"

Susie ignored that, let loose a battle cry and charged for the fake dragon. The faker still had the strength to hook her scythe into Susie's and block the attack. Then she pressed into Susie to stop her from unwinding her scythe from her opponent's. She used that time she bought to raise her leg and launch Susie back with a powerful kick.

Susie had to roll off to the side to escape the attack her doppelganger followed up with. She gave Susie a moment to get back up. "I kinda expected you to be...stronger. You sure you measure up?" Her eyes sized her up. "I don't think you do."

Susie mumbled back with her teeth clenched. "The hell you on about?"

"Already practising for your role I see. I don't think the human will fall for it. He somehow knew there were more of me."

"More of you - what does that even - wait - where is Kris?"

The grinning impostor bore her teeth. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She then closed her mouth save for a small gap and through it, shot an aimed, but strong burst of fire Susie's way. She was taken by surprise enough to not so much dodge as stumble out of the way. It was on now.

Susie took as deep a breath as she could and then did what she could to try and muster a breath of fire like the one thrown at her. She did exhale, but only a little gust of smoke came out. Her fake counterpart covered her face and broke out in uncontrollable laughter. So much so, she had to support herself on her scythe to not fall over. "What was that? Are you serious? You telling me this was you trying to breathe fire? What excuse for a dragon can't spit fire?"

For some reason this reaction from her increasingly distant opponent infuriated Susie more than anything up to this point. "I can spit fire! I just..." She tried taking an even deeper breath, channeled all her strength into her glands and pressed through so hard, her throat hurt. Sparking a tiny flame just outside her mouth, before that one vanished as well.

This display only made her fake laugh even harder. "Keep trying, I nearly saw something for a second!" She tried a few more times, but the only result was more ridicule from her counterpart. When it was all over, she needed a minute to pull herself together. "Oh gosh, you're sorta weak, you can't breathe fire, you've got nothing to show for around here..." She circled an area near her own chest with her finger.

Susie didn't know how to feel about that, but she was right. If you went just by the shape of Susie's chest, you could almost confuse her for a guy. The fake one didn't have that much either, but it was enough to look like an average girl Susie's age. "You're not 'another me', you're more like a cheap knockoff. What is this?"

Susie pointed at her. "Now who's the knockoff here?"

"You!" The fake Susie started laughing all over again. "That's not even going into your tail. Where is your tail? I can't even see it anywhere." Now, instead of pursuing her knockoff, Susie was backing off. Her face scrounged up and she couldn't help but grab the back end of her black coat and pull it more thoroughly over the little stub she had hiding beneath it. Which only prompted even more laughter. "Look at you trying to hide it! Getting all self-conscious now!"

"Fuck you! I'm just a late bloomer or something!"

"Yeah, sure." Now the fake Susie just placed her hands on both sides of her waist and bent forward as though talking to a child. "Gettin' real miffed now, are we? What's wrong then, glandlet? This the best you can do? You did come here to take me down right?"

"I have no clue who the hell you are."

"Sheesh, you're really sticking to that new role of yours."

"What role, you still haven't told me anything!"

The 'other' Susie had calmed down and hung her scythe over her shoulder. "Look, I ran with the whole program. Showing up, dropping some names so he thinks I was Susie, all of it. It worked once, but he wasn't prepared for that. Now he is. And even when I had him, I did everything the Knight said would work to keep him here. It didn't. If I don't make a convincing Susie, then you sure as hell aren't gonna make the cut."

"I don't HAVE to make any 'cuts' I AM Susie!"

"Yeah, sure. Here's a pop quiz then, 'Susie'. What's your favourite co - wait, if the Knight told me that, then you're gonna know that, too. How about this? Kris told me your class doesn't go to swimming pools any more. Why not? What happened last time 'you' went to one?" Susie twitched involuntarily, the moment she heard the words 'swimming pool'. Bringing that up stirred a memory she tried to keep out of her mind. "Ha! Look at you getting all red! It's almost like you know!"

"I know! It's just..."

"What? I already know the answer! So if you're the real deal, you lose nothing telling me!"

Susie clenched her fist and mumbled with her teeth gritted. "I'm going to get him for that."

"What is that? I couldn't quite hear it over the sounds of you-not-having-an-answer!"

Susie grumbled, but though begrudgingly, she gave in. "Fine. I didn't want to swim so I broke the jumping board. I bent the bars a bit, so the guys there said it's too dangerous to jump. They banned me from the place so it wouldn't happen again."

Her fake was taken by surprise by her knowing this. "That's...omitting some of the more embarrassing stuff, but yeah. That's right." The impostor paused and her stance eased up a bit. She closed up some of that distance the two had gained from one another. "So, wait a second. The 'zerks are all identical to one another. Same goes for Missies and Grunts. Why aren't we? And how did you make your weapon just appear like that?"

"You mean like this?" Susie raised her scythe and threw it blade-first onto the other 'Susie'.

She dodged it and watched Susie summon it back into her hand. "Yeah, how'd you do that?"

Susie just shrugged. "Dunno. I just do it."

As their back and forth slowed down, the previous agitation and bewilderment on both sides vanished. Slowly, the impostor came closer to Susie. Her expression was much more serious. "I think I know how we can settle this matter for good. But it's gonna hurt."

"You pull anything and I'm going to hurt you."

The fake threw her hands up. "It's not like that. Look, I'm way too far away to do anything to you. Here's the deal: Cut your hand?"

Susie's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Cut your hand. I'm a darkner, another 'me' would be a darkner. We bleed. Monsters don't. The real Susie's a monster, right?"

"I mean, yeah." She took a few steps back to make sure the fake could pull anything and cut into her hand with her scythe. It was painful enough to make her wince, but she didn't bleed. It left behind the same kind of temporary opening wounds always did. "See? No blood."

The other 'Susie's eyes widened. "Woah. So - I'm so sorry, I thought you were someone else!"

The sudden apology drove Susie right back up a wall. It broke the dam and left all the questions in her head spilling out at once. "Yeah no shit! What is going on here? Who are you? Why do you look like - this? Who did you think I am? And what does Kris have to do with all this?"

"Ugh..." The other dragon scratched her head. "For starters, we got off the wrong foot." She paused. "Hi. I'm Axe. And - oh geez - this is gonna take a while to explain."

The fake Susie led the way back to the front of the barn. In passing, Susie pointed at the body on the ground. "Are we just going to ignore this?"

Axe grumbled. "We'll get to that later. Let's get cover first before someone sees us. Or something."

"Like what?"

"Like an elder dragon. Nevermind that, get over here, I wanna see all the stuff that's different about us from up close." Axe was still weakened and couldn't wait to drop back onto the hay within the safety of the wooden walls. She started off by twisting around and comparing her hair length to Susie's. "So - when you guys were at school - did Kris ever look at you funny?"

Susie wasn't sure what to take from that. She raised her eyebrows. "Pretty sure he looks at everything funny."

"Yeah, but I mean you specifically - does he stare at you? Maybe with a paper and a pen...or a paint brush? Or like an easel for painting?"

"I think if he had brought an easel to school, I would have noticed. But no, not really. Is this going somewhere or..."

Axe stopped in the middle of the two comparing biceps between them. "Gosh, then he's being sneaky about it, too."

"About what?" This beating around the bush started to get on Susie's nerves.

And her sudden aggravated response threw Axe back enough to lean against the wall with her arms crossed. "Okay, did Kris ever mention that he's a little Michelangelo?"

"A what?"

"An artist."

"Yeah...he showed me some stuff...why?" She suddenly wasn't so sure about this.

"So under his bed, Kris has a little box, right? And you know what that box is full of?" Susie shrugged. "Pictures of you."

The confused dragon got up. "WHAT?"

Her lookalike seemed to get a rise out of her reaction. "Yep. And I'm not just talking portraits. It's full of stuff like 'You - but as a ranger shooting stuff' or 'You - but as a cook' or 'You - but as a big hulking berserker', he's done you in all kinds of roles and scenarios."

"What? What?"

Susie was more and more out of it, the more Axe dropped on her, so she threw her hands up. "Hey, you were getting all impatient. I thought you wanted me to get to the point."

It took a moment for the slightly anxious dragon to realize how worked up she was over this. She almost felt like fighting, or running somewhere. It was just a lot to jump her with like that. But with her mind wrapped around all this, her reaction seemed a little silly. She sat down. "Sorry, that just came out of nowhere for me."

"It' okay. So in the dark world, stuff that's clearly modeled after something, comes out as what it's imagined as. So guess what: The Basin had been opened, and now there's tons and tons of 'you' running around everywhere."

Susie was still agitated from the surprise. "So - that thing outside."

"A berserker. You, but as a big muscle girl with a sword."

She pointed at Axe's wound. "And you killed her for doing that?"

"No. Kris killed her for doing that."

That just confused her all over again. "WHAT? Kris did THAT?" In fact, that was where her disbelief settled in. "Nope. I'm not buying it. You're messing with me. There is no way he killed someone this big. Or anyone if there was any other way."

"I'm telling you, he did. She was about to kill me, so he climbed on her and totally sliced her throat open, and then I cut her head off."

The calming gesture and the addition Axe made was enough to get Susie to sit back down. "So it was you - Okay, that sounds more like him. But I'm still not sure about him killing someone."

Axe began slightly flailing her arms in a mocking fashion. "Oh, I'm sorry, is the big scary dragon afraid of a little human with a sword?"

"Shut up." She spent a few seconds brooding and going over what she heard. "So his whole art stash is all just me?"

"No. There's towns and a whole city full of other people he's drawn. But there's still a whole lot of you." Okay, for a while there, Susie had assumed this was a lot weirder than it really was.

"So you're - a 'me' too then?"

The fake Susie leaned back and rested her head against the fence. "That's the weird part. He SAID I was a faithful recreation from what you look like in the dark world." She eyed up Susie from head to toe one more time after having compared a lot about them.

"But look at you. Smaller teeth, less hair, less muscles, smaller tail, smaller...everything. Sure, all the differences are small enough that you can barely spot 'em at a distance. Still, you're kind of a letdown if I'm honest. And I think I know what's going on with that. I'd say someone's been wearing some serious rose-tinted shades looking at you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"...you know...rose-tinted glasses?"

"He's never worn any glasses."

Axe twitched. After really registering that Susie wasn't joking, she covered her face. Seeing Susie not pick up on what she meant brought her to the creeping realization that the real Susie was about as socially inept as Kris was. With her mouth half-closed, she mumbled to herself: "Oh god, a match made in heaven." Which explained a lot of the things Kris had told her about Susie earlier.

Luckily she managed to stop herself from being clear enough for Susie to understand. "A what?"

Axe shook her head. "Nevermind. I can walk anyway. Let's get some fresh air."

She got up and led Susie back outside. "So what is this place anyway - in the light world I mean?"

"Kris' room. His brother's bed. Kris' bed is the Kingdom of Taint, his brother's the Kingdom of Heaven. How's that for self-worth, huh?"

A dawning realization startled Susie. "Oh..."

"Anyway, I sent him off to go to - wait..." She froze in place and stared ahead. Then grabbed Susie by the shoulder and pushed her to the ground. "Get down!" She lowered her voice. "Someone's coming!"

"Who?"

They both shuffled along the grass, to peek right over the end of a little hill. "Wait, what is she of all people doing here?"

"Who?"

Axe sighed and got back up. "She's harmless, let's go."

The stranger they were approaching was...Susie. If Susie was to stick around here for too long, she had to get used to running into herself. But this one looked very different from herself or Axe. Her colors were the same she had in the light world, but instead of Susie's one shirt, this one wore a tank top and over it, her jacket hung over her shoulders like a cape. She had two lengthy objects strapped to her back, a plain-looking axe and a guitar.

She was pulling a small wooden cart after her and coming right for the other two. "So who is that?"

The groan that prompted from Axe sounded about as annoyed as she should have expected going by that other Susie's goofy get-up. "Why don't you just ask her?"

When they finally came within hearing range, the stranger greeted them with wide open arms and a little bottle in every hand. "Heeey! Axey-baby! How you doing?"

Axe sighed. "Hi."

"I see there's two of you now!"

"Not quite. Susie, this is Headbanger."

The other fake gave Susie a wink. "A-K-A 'Cool Susie'."

"Nobody calls you that. So, Headbanger, this is Susie."

For a second, Headbanger froze and stared at Susie. "Really now? She wants to pull the same stuff again?"

"No-nononono - this is Susie - THE Susie."

Going by the long pause between them, it seemed like Headbanger had some serious trouble believing what Axe was trying to tell her. "Wait, you mean like Susie-Susie? Susie-Susie-Susie?"

"That's me."

"Haaaay!" Headbanger swung her arm around for a weird upwards handshake. "Never thought I'd see you around here."

"Yeah, Kris must have told you a lot about me."

Her assumption got the more cheesy Susie to stop. "Actually, no, not really. You barely came up." Hearing that upset the real Susie more than she liked to admit. "Speaking of Kris..." Suddenly, Headbanger had her gaze locked on Axe. And she put on the biggest, shit-eating grin Susie could imagine. "...after all that talk about how you're better at catching and holding the human..."

She began poking her annoyed superior repeatedly with her fist. "...I'm not seeing a lot of humans around here any more. Looks a lot like you let him get away."

"Yeah..."

"Wait, why were you trying to catch him anyway?"

Headbanger turned around. "We'll go into that later. For now, I'm just messin'. I heard you were acting up from one of the 'zerks and thought you were gonna switch sides, too. Speaking of, I'm seeing she got you real good there. So I thought 'yay, cause for a party'. And what's better to party with..." She pulled the rag covering the cart away and revealed stacked racks of tiny bottles. Three of which she picked up and stretched into the air. "...than Tequila! Woo! One shot for you, one shot for you, and one for me."

She accepted the tiny bottle she was given, but just stood there scratching her head. "Switching sides? What's that all about?"

"Ugh, we'll have to go back to the start. Get a move on, I'll explain on the way." On their path further north, Axe and Headbanger worked hand in hand to explain everything to Susie that had happened around here up to the point where Axe sent Kris after Noelle and Ralsei. Succubi, elder dragons, tarot cards, everything. Along their path, Headbanger continued to pull their cart along and supply the increasingly merry trio with her shots.

Sure, their summaries left a lot open, but they covered everything Susie needed to understand what she was walking into. "Okay, so after you let him go, where did you send him anyway?"

"That's where we're going. Carpentown. The city of woodworkers. You can meet up with Kris and the others there."

Susie stopped following them right there. And as soon as they registered that, so did the other two. "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that."

"Why not?"

"Thing is, if they find out how I got here, stuff would get awkward real fast. I don't really want it to get that far." The thought of having to have a long conversation about how and why she spent her dreams chasing Kris into the dark world made her very uncomfortable.

"Okay...how did you get here?"

They both came closer to listen closely as Susie thought about explaining. "So...you know that when you - a lightner I mean - when a lightner-" She stopped. She realized that being among 'herself' was making her way too trusting to two people she didn't really know. "It doesn't matter. Thing is, no-one can know I'm here. Okay?"

"Okay, but why?"

She avoided eye-contact, with both of them. "Because - because." Because if when you dreamed your way to the dark world, you landed in places or around people you thought about when falling asleep, and the first place she landed in was Kris' room...she didn't know what to say if they asked her about that. She didn't know what to think of it either. "Reasons. Because, okay? Just because."

"That's not a..."

The rock star cut her off. "I don't think she wants to talk about it."

Both raised their heads in acknowledgement. "Okay, okay."

All of a sudden, the anticipation-driven vigor in all of them was gone, and they stared at the grass for a while. "So what are we gonna do then?"

Susie awkwardly stepped back from the hill they were climbing. "I'm just going to have to stay away from what they're doing. Maybe hang out with you guys some more, catch up on more stuff Kris and the others were doing and then call it."

The other two followed her back for a bit. But no-one was really happy with this. They all appeared to look forward to seeing Susie unite with the others. "Hey." They shifted places so that Axe was walking with Susie. "What if there was a way?"

"Huh?"

The resignation was all gone. "What if there was a way that you could come along with Kris and all those 'heroes'."

She rolled her eyes. "We've just been over this. Sooner or later, they'd ask how I got here."

"What if no-one asks how 'Susie' got here, because 'Susie' never showed up?" Now that had Susie dumbfounded enough to stop and listen. "What if you went to join them, but not as 'You'?"

Susie started to think that Axe was building up some long, elaborate and unfunny joke and looked back at her with her head hung to the side. "And as 'who' then?"

Her cheeky doppelganger reached for the white ribbon woven into her hair and tugged at the loose strings to feel up how it was tied and slowly remove it. "As me." With the ribbon removed, she handed it over to her. "Put that on and just pretend you're me."

The put-off dragon recognized this ribbon from the Card Kingdom. Kris tried to get her to wear it before. This must have been part of the joke. "I am NOT putting that thing on."

"Trust me on this. It'll work!"

"Why?"

"Kris was all scared that there's more than one 'Axe' - hell, when you showed up, I thought he was right. Whoever looks like you or me and has this thing on, he'll think she's me. You put it on, you can just pretend you're me."

She bore her teeth at the very thought of it. "That'd make me look like a complete weenie." If she ever showed weakness, everyone at school would eventually pick up on it.

"Ugh, Susie! No-one's gonna think you're a weenie, because nobody knows you're here. Anything you do falls back on me and for you, it's like you were never here."

When Susie took it from Axe's hand, she swapped back and forth between staring at the ribbon and Axe. "Okay, so even if we DID try this. We'll be fighting stuff at some point. They're going to notice I don't bleed eventually."

Neither of her two clones seemed too bothered by this. "They CAN know you don't bleed. They just can't know why not. As long as you show 'em on your terms, that'll solve itself." She grabbed Susie's coat and carefully brought the tip of her scythe to its shoulder. Susie froze and watched Axe tear a hole into her coat, right where her own coat had one. "You two just come up with something like 'someone fixed me up and this is a part of how."

"Okay..." She was hesitant at first, but she gave in. Slowly, they made their way to their destination again, and Susie tried to tie that bow around a lock of her hair. "So if we're doing this...what do I even say? I mean you're not really all that like me, right?" She had trouble binding it in that same double-loop knot it had been bound to Axe's hair with and spent almost the whole rest of their time together trying to get it right.

Axe raised her head and swung her scythe back over her shoulder. "I make a damn good Susie and you know it! For a solid half hour I had him thinking I was you. Frankly, between the two of us, I'd say I'm the better 'you'. Actually, that's a good start. I was proud of that. You've got to rub in what a good 'Susie' you make and he won't suspect a thing. And Kris really wasn't comfortable with..." Axe stopped mid-sentence. They all stopped walking for a moment.

"When he's unsure - if you feel like your cover's getting close to blowing, you just hold him like this..." She ran one arm around Susie's shoulder and pressed it down with a considerable force. The kind of force Susie actually often used pressing down Kris the same way when she felt like it. "And you tell him to trust you, and that 'big sister Axe has always got his back'. That sounds like something he'd expect from me, but not from you."

Then she slammed Susie's shoulder with her palm and really put their strength to use, making it painful, even for her. "Might even get him to open up a little. Stop scurrying away from people all the time." She burst out laughing and led the way ahead. Further north.

Until they saw the strange, wooden city, with wooden walls, wooden everything. Outside the gates stood a fleet of wagons, all pulled by horses, but stuck here. And the people on and around them were visibly on edge. In the middle of it, several guards surrounded a large, glowing orb.

All three of them dropped down and lay on the grass to slowly crawl up the hill and peek at what they just saw without getting spotted. What made their trek precarious, was that Headbanger was so drunk, she was stumbling around every step of the way already, and her cart was still attached to her and ran the risk of tipping over with her on the ground like this.

Then again, the three dragons had already emptied over half of this big stash of shots the cart held. Granted, Headbanger had done most of the work emptying all those, but the other two had still downed enough to get tipsy. Perhaps they wouldn't have gotten Susie to agree to all this if they didn't. A third, sober party might have noticed, but among the three of them, no-one did.

"What is that thing?" Susie pointed at the orb.

"Dragon bait. It's a thing Tempts - Temptress made. Draws dragons to it like moths to a flame. Her words, not mine. But why do they have it here?"

"Did they - did they want me to come here?"

"Nobody knows you're here. Besides, that's stupid. It's glowing, so it's already taking effect. If this keeps up for too long, we'll have..."

As though on cue, a wild roar echoed across the countryside from behind them. A giant lizard surged their way through the sky and past them with the strength of its glowing wings. "What is that?" With a neck and tail long enough she could have flailed both around like a whip if she wanted to.

"It's balloon tits."

"It's what?"

"Nevermind, she's a storm dragon. And a crazy one. And she's your chance at proving whose side you're on." She got up and helped Susie on her feet.

"Forget about taming this one. She's a wild card. But there's a whole lot more further in the south. If she makes it back alive, this place will be swarming with much more of them. Come on, get moving, both of you!"

Axe pushed the other two ahead, but after what little distance Susie was forced to cover, she turned around. "You not coming, too?"

"You really want them to see us side by side to compare? Now go!" By that point, the scaled colossus was already conjuring up enough storm clouds to cover the sky. Spurred on by the urgency, Susie and Headbanger made their way to where the beast stopped.


	36. Black Night Town

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 24

Black Night Town

* * *

When Kris arrived, a large field in front of Carpentown was covered in carriages and wagons with people in and around them. But Noelle wasn't around. Making sure she was all right was the first box for him to check. Maybe she and the others were already in town. But between here and the town gates, there was a large commotion. Probably not the best way inside. He circled around the outside and found another gate.

Outside the walls, at the eastern gates, there was a settlement, or there used to be. The layout made it seem like there used to be a village of farmers, but all the buildings had long turned into charred ruins. There were remains of fences, possible enclosures for farm animals, but they were empty.

The eastern gate was still guarded, but without a large, noisy crowd to deal with. If Noelle was inside, this was the best place to slip in and look for her. Two sword-looking guards stood in front of it. With two of those golden women overlooking them from the town wall above. "Stop! Her eminence has put restrictions on entry to the town."

"I'm just looking for someone. She might be in there. I'll go again when I find her."

They were about to turn him away, when one guard interrupted the other. "It's only one person. I can check on it if he isn't coming back soon."

One of the golden women snapped at the guard from above. "Don't you dare! Her eminence is above letting in such rabble as this - boy!" She overemphasized the 'boy' so much, she practically spat doing so.

The other hid her mouth behind her fan and laughed. "Exactly. We try to maintain a certain level of class in here. Can't have too much dangling about if we want to keep it that way."

One of the guards was annoyed enough to snap back at her. "Give it a rest you two!" He opened the gate for Kris to pass. "Come on, go. Just try not to take too long." Strange, but he welcomed the opportunity to enter. The first thing to do was find Noelle and Ralsei, the others, and then get out of there again so they could figure out their next move.

He recognized almost all the buildings in the city of Carpentown. It was as if someone had taken all of his and Asriel's quirky designs for wooden buildings, even the most impractical ones, and had cramped them all into one big cluster within the stone walls, giving it all a nonsensical layout that just frustrated Kris.

There was a surprisingly low amount of monster-like darkners here. Most of the people walking the streets were Noelle's tarot cards. The closer to the big mansion in the centre of town he got, the more of them were those golden women.

The town was lit with torches on both sides of every street. The doors and windows of most buildings were closed. Once when he came by an open window, he looked inside to see some cat monsters, which cowered behind the window and quickly shut it after noticing that they had his attention. The few times he did encounter a monster from his own drawings, he asked them if they saw a deer or a black goat, but none of them seemed to.

Then he spotted someone whose sight sent a cold shadow crawling on his back. A human, about a foot taller than him, every limb stretched out a little bit in length relative to his own. He had yellow skin, wore a green-and-yellow striped shirt and the bangs of Kris' own hair were simplified into more easy to draw spikes.

When the human-looking darkner noticed he was spotted, he flashed a smile at Kris that pulled the corners of his mouth up to an unnatural height not possible for a real human. He had ridiculously oversized eyes and microscopic irises and pupils. And a generally flattened shading to how light reflected on him.

It was Slasher. The result of Kris trying out an anime art style, drawing himself in it and using that occasion to blow off some steam. By now, Kris was aware that the things he thought and felt when drawing a character, affected what the drawing's respective dark world equivalent was like. Which was why he knew that Slasher was a lot more unhinged and dangerous than Butcher back in Bedrock.

If Noelle and Ralsei were anywhere near here, then Kris had to do something about Slasher before that came back to bite him. He put off his search for his friends and trailed Slasher. Followed him around the many corners caused by the misaligned buildings, all the way to the outskirts of town, where the buildings were still eccentric, but visibly more shabby on average than in the centre.

The killer turned around to glance at Kris several times during his trip through town, which ended in what must have been his house. It was a simple longhouse, but had elements of traditional far-eastern architecture. Including some of its flat, windowed walls being side-ways sliding doors. Slasher entered through a sliding door on one end of the building, while Kris sought out one on the other end.

The house's interior was dark and empty. With occasional lit incense sticks kept in the corners of each room. He heard a noise. It wasn't screaming, but clearly sounds of some woman being in distress, accompanied by a buzzing or fizzing sound. And the closer he got to where Slasher had entered, the louder it got. When there was only one more door separating him from what was going on there, he made sure to slide it open very slowly and carefully.

Behind it, Slasher waited for him, and he wasn't alone. Someone was with him, tied to a wooden table. With various gadgets and cables connecting them to a machine that Slasher held the controlling lever of. It was a rat monster, an exact lookalike of Sarah. His Mom's divorce lawyer. Slasher had all this machinery gifted to him as part of the same drawing he sprung from and was using it to electrocute 'Sarah' while keeping her alive.

"I'm so glad you could join us." Slasher let go of the lever, leaving it half-way pulled so that the rat - while at a lower voltage - remained subjected to continuous electric shocks. He was armed with an oversized kitchen knife and tilted his entire body sideways in a creepy way when he faced Kris.

"You expected me?"

The killer's unnatural smile only grew even wider. He bore his sharp teeth, another artistic deviation from Kris' appearance. "Why of course, you are the talk of town. The lightner those new visitors look to for resolution to their problems. Dubbed 'dragonslayer' in a colossal slew of irony. Oh if only most of them knew what your true involvement with the dragons is. The same involvement you have with me. But now that I see you, I suspect the latter is true to a greater extent than the former."

He stared at Slasher for a while, trying to figure out a course of action. "Oh not so quiet. Please, include us in your thoughts. Have you come here to sate your thirst for adventure. Do you fancy yourself the knight in shining armor..." He turned to 'Sarah' and turned the lever all the way, intensifying the shocks and turning the rat monster's bibbers into screams. "...here to rescue THIS DISGUSTING MAIDEN?"

"No." He replied in a cold and unfazed tone. "No, you can keep doing with her what you like."

"No! HELP!" The rat begged for Kris to do something about her situation. He had little intention to do so.

"Then what exactly do you pay us a visit for?"

Kris remembered that there was an amicable resolution to dealing with Butcher. Maybe that was another pattern with the dark world. Maybe your own lookalikes were more agreeable towards you. Maybe the same was the case here. "I'm here to offer you a deal. Some friends of mine are arriving here. I want you to leave them alone. You don't touch one hair on them. In exchange, I won't tell anyone about you and I won't touch one hair on you."

Slasher jestingly covered his mouth, while swinging his kitchen knife around. "Oh, a request for restraint, is it? I see. Charming, but pointless. Sure, I could agree to your terms, make the conscious effort to stay away from those friends of yours, hope you keep your end of it and we all go on our merry ways. OR - or - I could just kill you and not have to agree to anything."

Well of course things had to go this way. Slasher was pure, unadulterated edge, put to paper by a frustrated artist.

Kris drew his sword and watched Slasher swing his knife. When he did, more knives appeared, floating above through the room, all of which were pointed at him. A few of them drew away from him for a moment, but he immediately knew what that meant. Those were the next knives to shoot for him, and shortly thereafter, they did surge towards him. He could easily dodge the knives by looking which ones drew back first, made his way past the incoming attacks and swung his sword at his anime-lookalike. Slashing open his right forearm with one attack.

He fled to an opposite corner in the room and covered the wound Kris inflicted with his opposite hand. "Curious. You're very adept at reading attack patterns - almost as if you had a lot of experience with that." He began continuously summoning singular knives that shot in Kris' general direction, starting at different points relative to him.

They all moved his way in the same order they appeared in, so again, Kris had little trouble dodging them with little sidesteps even without turning time back. "Or do you just know me so well, because you know yourself just as well?"

"Oh so cold. Don't be like that to me. After all, I am a depiction of what you would do, the moment you could. Those 'friends' of yours only know the masks you wear. I am the face that lurks beneath them." He rushed into another corner and summoned another predictable hail of knives, as easy to dodge as the previous ones. Kris struck for Slasher's right arm again, and cut it open even further. The darkner was no longer able to cover up his gushing wound.

"They only know you for the restraint you show. You shut yourself off from them out of fear what they will discover. I am the nature they run the risk of finding. Your nature." When the hails of knives grew bigger, Kris grabbed a nearby wooden chair to block them off with as he made his way to his target.

By the time the next wave was used up, he was close enough to grab hold of him. As Kris anticipated, the killer next tried to attack with the knife he was holding onto all this time. But that was the same arm Kris had injured so heavily. So all he had to do, was reach for Slasher's knife and wrestle it from his weakened hand.

The gesture Slasher made with his other hand clearly was him summoning more knives to attack Kris from behind. So he grabbed hold of both of Slasher's arms, spun around his body along with his opponent's and watched as all the incoming knives buried themselves in the cartoon human's back. He wanted to be safe about Slasher not recovering from this though, so he pulled his sword back and stabbed him with it on top of that.

Even in his last moments, bleeding out of all his wounds, the killer was still smiling. "I exist for a reason, 'dragonslayer'. The part of you that inspired me, precedes me, and will outlive me. You can kill me, but you will never be rid of me." He only had breath left to whisper the last words, before he gave in to his wounds.

He tipped Slasher's husk over, pulled his sword back out, and let him sag to the ground. He then pulled the lever back to turn off the machine. "Ah, thank goodness, the nightmare is finally over. Quick, untie me, and let's get out of here." With a hopeful look in her eyes, the rat monster stared at Kris.

Waiting for him to remove her from here. He did come closer. "What a lunatic. What nonsense he was talking. Claiming you were anything like him. You came here to rescue me." She stared at him, waiting for him to undo the ties that held her here. "You did come here to rescue me, right? Right?...Right?"

When Kris next left that barren house, it had fallen silent. For good. Making it so felt relieving. Turning this anime into a splatter movie unloaded a lot of lingering anger that had been building up in him in recent time. He couldn't do someone with that face a favour like the one she was asking. The opportunity was too good. With a sense of contentment, he stuffed away the bundle of rat whiskers he collected as a trophy and washed off the blood with water from a nearby hose.

Kris never fully trusted Sarah, but especially not as the reasons not to, began to pile up. Noelle always told him to open up and be nicer to her, but he had a really hard time doing so.

Dad used to be a respected government official. The mayor of Hometown. He only resigned after an embarrassing incident where he threw up in public. He wasn't sick before that, he wasn't under some heavy medication, the only detail that seemed to somewhat relate, was that he had drunken a glass of Sarah's wine, just before.

The mob that picketed their house the next day, declared him a drunkard and demanded that he resign his position, wasn't made up of his constituents. Kris talked to them when it happened. They all came from out of town, and all happened to be personal friends of Sarah. Some specifically mentioned her bringing this up and enlisting them to come to picket the house.

Mom and Dad's love for each other couldn't have been more visible. It was at times unbearable how lovey-dovey they were, except unlike a regular couple, they were like that whenever they were together. That was, until shortly after Dad's resignation, Sarah pulled Mom aside and began talking to her more and more often.

Then things grew more tense at home, the nuzzling and kissing between them stopped and the shouting matches began. A month later, she filed for divorce, Sarah was naturally chosen as the lawyer to handle her case and got to make a lot of money off destroying Kris and Asriel's family.

After that, she started spending more and more time with the Holidays. The Holidays' marriage was as solid as the Dreemurrs', but not long after Sarah befriended Carol, Noelle's mother, Carol became more and more snippish, short-spoken and unfriendly to Kris, to Asriel, to Dad, to Rudy, eventually even to Noelle. To the point where Kris got the impression that with his one visit, he had visited Rudy in the hospital more often than his own wife did.

Noelle kept making excuses for all this, but the coincidences converged way too much for Kris to believe that Sarah was entirely innocent in all of it.

It seemed much more like every time something horrible happened in Hometown, Sarah would happen to be involved in some way. She always just happened to have been there, just before it happened.

Slasher was right about one thing. What happened here today was a perfect reflection of how Kris felt about Sarah, about the things he wished he could do to her. Should he ever have solid reason to believe he could get away with it, he estimated that Sarah had maybe a week to live before suffering a tragic run-in with a knife. Followed up most likely by a few dozen more run-ins until there was only dust.

There was a reason why he always kept a knife on him.

* * *

"What do you mean they won't let us?" The emperor, Dasher and Ralsei - after approaching the gates to ask in person what was going on, had gathered in front of all the carriages, and were joined by a now very confused Noelle.

The emperor shrugged. "They simply turned us away. Me included. The moment they caught wind that these folks are on the run from elder dragons, they blocked the way. Now they won't let us in."

"But why?"

"Ask him." The emperor gestured towards an arborfolk, a wooden man dressed in unusually fancy court attire, who held a scroll. "That's the herald she sent, he'll know."

The herald stepped onto a nearby tree stump, cleared his throat and folded open a scroll he had brought with him. "Her eminence the Empress of all four kingdoms, praised to heavens be her name, has decreed that such backwards, lowly rabble as you are to stay out of our fine city of Carpentown. Dragons are nice and friendly, and your backwards ideas about dragons being 'wild animals' and how they - and I quote - 'burned down our homes', have no place in a forward-thinking place such as Carpentown." The herald raised one finger. "BUT! BUT! Her eminence is not only considerate and wise ..."

"I contest those two things!" Shouted one villager from his chariot.

"If you don't help us, we're going to die!" Added another.

The herald just cleared his throat again and continued. "...but also forgiving and merciful. As I speak, her servants are bringing to you an enchanted dragon lure." Indeed there were more arborfolk pulling a cart under heavy physical efforts, which carried a large, glowing crystal ball. "This lure draws elder dragons to it like moths to a flame. You will spend the night gathered around it, and once you have had a friendly interaction with an elder dragon, you will have proven a modicum of open-mindedness."

The human-looking archer stopped him right there. "With all due respect, I have witnessed the elder dragons with my own eyes. The villagers will not survive a longer encounter with them should they reach us without us being armed to take them down."

"TAKE THEM DOWN?" Burst out of the offended herald. "Why would you want to 'take down' such majestic creatures?"

Dasher rolled his eyes. "They're not like the succubi, they're wild animals..."

"ENOUGH! I will not entertain any more of this stupidity. Dragons are perfectly nice and friendly and everyone should invite them into their midst."

"Why are there none in the town then?"

Words that drew an immediate silence from everyone, as well as curious looks to the person ushering them. Hearing who blurted out those words left both Noelle and Ralsei overcome with relief. "Kris!"

"You escaped!"

They both practically jumped to give him a hug, but he was - true to the Kris that Noelle knew - stiff as a lamp post and fully fixated on the herald. Who turned to him with one eyebrow raised. "I beg your pardon?"

Kris explained what he meant. "I was just in Carpentown and there were no dragons there. You just said everyone should invite dragons into their midst, but then where are the dragons in **your** midst?"

The herald just raised his nose. "Hmph, such entitlement. You should learn to respect your betters."

"You didn't answer the question." But before Kris could press him on that any further, the herald already stormed off.

One of the guards he had come with, stayed with them for a moment and added something of his own. "You know there used to be a dragon in town, an armored succubus. But she marched around Chateau de Chop, the Empress' current seat and caused a huge commotion. Kept blaring out something about 'Beauty' and 'purging the dragons' corruption'."

"Do you know where she went?"

The guard pointed behind him. "Apparently she's terrorizing the vineyards to the west town now. Which also means she's not our problem any more." He then left.

Ralsei still hadn't let Kris go, in fact he hugged him even tighter. He had his face buried into the shoulder that wasn't armored and was practically crying. His shoulders' shaking certainly played the part. "Kris, I'm so glad you're okay. I was so scared! I wouldn't know what to do if anything happened to you!"

"You shouldn't have. The Knight needs me alive for some reason."

"How did you break free from the Susies?"

"I didn't. Axe let me go."

Both Noelle and Ralsei stopped for a moment, and their confusion drew the emotion right back out. "What? Why?"

"It's a long story."

He marched right on towards the city walls to trace the outside walls once there. Naturally, Ralsei and Noelke followed him. "I'm just so glad you're back in one piece."

"Yes, yes." Seeing Noelle and Ralsei be all right and making sure they stayed with him so he could keep it that way was his top priority. But now that he had found them again, he had other things on his mind.

"Wait, what happened after they took you? And where are we going?"

He led them around the city walls, past the acres surrounding them in search for the ones north if town. "The tarot card people are strange they're...they didn't attack me but they talked a lot like we were enemies somehow."

"You're saying they treated you with animosity?"

"Yes, animosity. And the people in town are hiding in their homes. They're scared of something. And then this guy talked so much about how much they like dragons - Something strange is going on here and I hope that dragon knows something about it. If they like dragons so much, you would think they would do everything to keep her there. Why would they throw out the only dragon that actually visits them, unless they were worried about something she said or did?"

"Yes but hold on a second!" They stopped. "Kris, how did you get here?"

"I told you, Axe let me go."

He was about to rush onwards when Noelle grabbed him by the arm and held him in place. "I got that, it's just, you were gone for do long." She exchanged glances with Ralsei. "We were worried about you. I thought we could talk about that for a bit. Aren't you the least bit interested in what happened with us?

"I know most of it. You jumped off the plane then you got to see the elder dragons break out, now you're here and soon so are they. Now let's go!"

Noelle didn't like this. With him being so soft-spoken, physically unresponsive, the way he avoided looking at her again, it was like all that progress she had seen him make opening up to people had just poofed away, just like that. And she had no idea how and when that had happened, or why.

They knew they reached the vineyards when the grain and apple tree fields ceased and acres of grape vine plantations lined their path. "Where are all the people?" They got to a familiar sight. A big, comfortable-looking curved row of buildings that belonged together. Unlike the plantations, this whole place was ripped from Kris' and Asriel's art stash.

Two of them were just storehouses, adjacent and belonging to a wide, three storage house with pine bars lining the outside between the white-painted walls and closed windows. No weird, 'artistic' twists or impractical shapes, just a rectangular, function-over-form house the way Kris preferred it.

The lights were on, so someone was at home. Kris was about to knock on the door, but it burst open before he could. A sweaty bear monster came out and ran, carrying a wooden barrel over his shoulder. "Excuse me?"

"No time!" The winegrower didn't bother to turn to him, he kept on pacing down the path along the buildings, across a wider road, to a smaller storehouse with a smoking chimney further down the path. "Need to keep the dragon appeased."

"Yes - where is the dragon?"

"Right here." He pulled the curtain aside, placed the barrel on the ground, then made a run for it as if something very scary was chasing him.

Inside, they saw the armored dragon they were talking about. Kris remembered last seeing her at the Journeyman's tower, when the Journeyman recounted what happened before they arrived at Bedrock. Veritas, Susie's light world likeness, dressed up as a legionnaire from ancient times, sat in front of an open fire.

The metal plates that were once her clean and flawless armor, hung messily over her torso. Her helmet with its red crest lay in a corner, tossed to the ground going by its trajectory. At least she still had her cape. She spread her arms when she saw them come in. "More wine! And more strangers! Have you too come to mock me? Gather around then!"

Kris took that as his invitation for them to sit down around her, and all three did so roughly facing the fire. "No."

"Wouldn't hold it against you, you wouldn't be the first." She was speaking with a heavy slur. It was hard to discern how much or for how long she must have been drinking. Or how much.

"We saw what you did back in Bedrock. What happened to you?"

"What does it look like?" She got up, grabbed her gladius, chopped open the barrel and filled her cup with wine before sitting back down on her side of the fire. "I've run into a dead end. There's no moving forward. My quarry's escaped and I've got no way to pick up that trail right now."

"What quarry?"

Veritas grabbed Kris by the shoulder and pressed down on him - at first to help keep herself stable, then she began forcefully shaking him. "Same quarry as always, you fool! Beauty of course! My feud with Beauty will never end so long as both of us live!" She struck out to make so wide a gesture, it almost sent her falling over. "I will hunt and kill ALL the dragons and I'll keep killing her until she NEVER comes back."

"Why?"

"Doesn't matter!" She grabbed him again and repeated herself until he looked her straight in the eyes. "Listen, listen, listen, listen...listen, all the dragons are corruption, made manifest! They all have to be destroyed!"

"You're a dragon too, you know."

Veritas put on a wide grin and pointed at herself. "Yeah, but I'm the exception to the rule. I will get Beauty, I will get Temptress, and then I will get all the rest for good. They're all gonna pay! My hunt will never end until they're all gone! I'm just sort of...stuck right now."

"How so?"

"I've got a means of tracking Beauty's movements. But I lost her." Veritas rummaged through a bag next to her and pulled out a strange, small contraption. It was made so that you could attach it to a wrist like a watch, but it wasn't a watch, it was a sundial. A 'sun-watch', perhaps. She held it up into the air for a few seconds.

"See? Nothing. There's supposed to be lights showing me the way. But when I followed her into this this place, it stopped working. She's somewhere in that mansion in the middle of the city, I know it. But the guards didn't let me inside, and then some hoity-toity woman had me thrown all the way out here. The winemakers saw me shout at the guards and now think I'm some kind of scary monster out to get them, so they bring me all the wine I could ask for to keep me appeased."

She picked up a few more cups that previously lay on the ground unused. "Speaking of wine, you want some?" He quietly declined. "Suit yourself. What are you even here for?"

"We came here because I thought you might know more about what's going on here. What's scaring the people in town so much? Why is the Empress so - we brought a lot of farmers here who lost everything, and she's keeping them out. Why?"

"I know why the townsfolk are a little skittish. Not long before you, Temptress landed here, riding on the back of an enormous elder dragon. They burned down the farms in the east and scavenged what was left for cattle and other animals to feed the beast to prepare it for an upcoming battle. Her succubi helped occupy the area and drive all the local farmers away."

"When the townsfolk turned to the other force occupying their town, the Empress not only refused to drive the succubi back out, but forbade hurting or harassing the dragons in any way. Even if one of the locals so much as criticized a dragon or dragons in general, they were thrown into one of the new dungeons the Empress had built. The townsfolk are skittish around anyone they don't know, because they can tell that some form of treachery is afoot."

She poured herself another cup as the last one had run out. "As for the Empress' sudden hostility, if it was an Emperor rather than an Empress, I would know exactly what is going on. Since I traced Beauty here, it would follow that HE would be in her thrall. But seeing as this Empress isn't a HE, Beauty's innate magic wouldn't work...I don't know what to tell you. I'm at a loss."

"Even if - just put down the wine and come with us. Maybe we can help you catch Beauty and make sense of all this."

Veritas put her cup down to gesture quotation marks in the air. "Now listen here, 'Dragonslayer', I'm well aware that Axe and her lot got the jump on you. Twice. You've got to know when you're beat."

Ralsei pushed the dragon with an unexpected force. "You can't say that! We've been through worse and Kris always found a way out."

She just shrugged it off though. "If he had anything useful to offer, you wouldn't have come to ask me for help."

Noelle took that as her cue to remind them of that orb. "Even if that was true, we have to try. We don't have a choice. We have to resolve whatever is going on and fast."

"Why?"

"The Empress' guards brought out some kind of bait...ball and said it attracts elder dragons."

This immediately drew Veritas' full attention. "What - what did it look like?"

"It was just a big, glowing orb."

The description appeared to startle Veritas even more. "That can't be. Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"That's the dragon lure. That orb belongs to Temptress. I was there when she created it. Why does the Empress have it?" They all shrugged. Not like they had any way of knowing. "Either way if that's the case, you should get to safety and hide away until the storm blows over. Best somewhere underground. Me, I'll rather stay here with my wine."

That was it for Kris. He didn't see much of a way to convince Veritas to join them or believe that she had any more useful information. It was time to get back up and make their way back. And their way back was quiet. No-one had anything to say to their encounter with the legionnaire. The pressing air didn't last forever though. Something caught Kris' attention enough to make him stop and look up at the sky.

Several things struck him. For one, there were clouds. Made visible not through a lack of stars, but through the highlighted silhouettes they had in the dark world. They had a completely clear sky when they were outside just before. And it wasn't that there were just a few clouds like on a summer day. There were lots of them. And they were moving. Fast. Fast enough that you could see them moving even if you didn't stand still. Appearing and converging from all around and soon completely covering the sky.

Something else was happening now. A storm was gathering. At a ridiculous speed. Within a manner of seconds, the sky was covered in clouds, the air around them turned much colder, and they could hear thunder and the distant flashes of light they followed. Something was coming. And when he heard that shrieking roar cast itself across the land, he knew what it was.

"It's Tempest!" Tempest had returned.


	37. Razorscale

.

Draconic Fortune

Chapter 25

Razorscale

* * *

Tempest had returned. Kris had thought filling the storm dragon's wings with holes would have been enough to get rid of her, but either she recovered, or that wasn't enough to stop her for long. When they arrived back at the front gates, she was already steadily keeping herself high up in the air above all the wagons. Flashes of light within the clouds made clear to the three of them, that the clouds were quickly charging and would soon release their voltage with lighting strikes.

Those families that had wagons with tents to hide under, tried hiding in those. One family of four got off their carriage and tried to make a run for it. Seeing that appeared to upset the dragon. She roared again chased the fleeing villagers, lowered herself and took a deep breath. Once in position, she unleashed a blinding stream of strangely slow-moving lightning strikes.

The monsters didn't stand a chance. It fried them within a matter of mere moments and their charred bodies sagged to the ground. There were other families slowly following this one, but seeing what running away got those who tried, led to them slowly returning to their carriages to take shelter. Running away was not an option.

"How is she still flying? And what happened to her wings?"

Ralsei pointed at said wings. A bright glowing, seemingly transparent green film was wrapped along their entire span. The holes in her wings were still there, but apparently whatever this glow covering them was, worked to patch them up. At least for the purpose of flying. "It's a solid enchantment. Someone must have put it on her wings so she can fly."

"Can you just shoot them again so she falls down?"

"Magic bullets won't work. If it's glowing green like that, it's counter magic, it'll just cancel out any magic attacks."

"What about real bullets?" By the time he said that, the elder dragon had already gained enough altitude for Kris to realize this wouldn't work. Shooting Tempest from down here - even any shots lucky enough to hit her at all, would most likely hit her wings as their span made up most of what you could see. What alerted him enough to change his focus was seeing a flash of lightning hit the ground only a few dozen feet away from one of the wagons in the back.

The growing voltage was unloading itself by making lightning strikes hit the grass. Just like with Faith. But that also showed him how to deal with it. "Noelle! Lightning conductors?"

The deer had frozen, but when commanded, followed suit. Now that she was able to, she summoned her staff back into her hand, raised it, and moderately-sized vines rose from the ground with their pointy ends directed straight up to the sky. The only reprieve they had was that for the time being, Tempest didn't seem to be doing much except float up there and charge up a storm. The orb must have been keeping her here.

In their absence, the town guards had brought a tent that they set up over and around the orb. The same green glowing film covering Tempest's wings also hung over the top side of the tent. The sword guards were standing around it, close enough to flee inside if things got too dangerous, but far enough outside to turn away the pleading villagers and threaten to stab them with their spears. "Back away, peasants!" They were in the middle of shooing away a family of moose monsters when he arrived.

"I beg of you! You already have what you wanted, you summoned one of those beasts! Now please take the orb away or destroy it!"

The sword guard the villager was trying to reason with, simply threw him back by kicking him with one of his tiny boots. He was severely injured, enough to be unable to move. As if on cue, Ralsei followed Kris and healed the monster. In a slow and non-treatening motion, Kris pointed at the villager. "He's right. You should take that thing away."

The guards stood firm and one raised his head so his not-nose pointed far above Kris. "It is by her flawless eminence's decree that the orb remain in place! The lure must remain active until either you have learned to coexist with dragons, or none of this intolerant rabble is left!"

Before Kris could respond, they heard the elder dragon snarl from above. Tempest raised and opened one of her hands. Within her grasp, a tornado formed, which followed her hand's movements as she threw it onto the ground. It hit one of the bandwagons. The family inside jumped out of it before it could reach them. But the little storm pulled off the protective tent, strew their possessions in all directions and eventually ripped part the wagon itself. When Kris next faced the guard again, he had his answer: "I don't think there's much coexisting to be had here."

Dasher had picked up on the same conclusions Kris and Ralsei had come to. He had stopped trying to shoot the dragon with his bow, and instead, he and the emperor followed Kris to the guardsmen's tent to back him up. "You are killing these people!" the angered archer said.

The guard addressed made sure to keep his eyes raised above where Dasher and the Emperor stood as well. "We are doing no such thing. We are not touching most of these peasants."

"You may not be killing them yourselves, but the dragon is and it's your fault!"

"Humbug! Dragons are peaceful creatures and would never hurt a fly!"

By the time he said that, the elder dragon had unleashed another small tornado and destroyed another wagon. Which only aggravated Dasher even more. "This one is hurting a lot of people right now!"

"Wait, who is that?" Ralsei interrupted their conversation, pointing at the sky. From the west, something came flying their way.

A shrouded figure. It was the same very warmly dressed woman that saved Kris' life from Faith by burning some strange symbol into her shoulder. "We saw her earlier! On the Fields of Despair." Overly stuffed boots and gloves made her hands and feet appear even bigger than they likely were. A thick hood enveloped her head by a large margin. And just in case it didn't completely obscure her, a little silken cloth was wrapped over the front end of her face, cramped under her collar from below.

Kris didn't recognize her from any drawing, and he already found her choice of clothing strange enough the first time. It was all so wide, so heavily stuffed. Either she was set up to travel to Antarctica, a place as cold as that, or she really didn't want anyone to see what she looked like. If her body were thinner, he couldn't even have told it was a 'she' under those layers. The sheer width of what she wore would have obscured her completely.

The hooded woman flew directly in front of Tempest. She drew a small circle in the air with her hand, summoning a golden scepter. She grabbed it and swung it sideways. When she did, a stone cube appeared in front of her and shot the dragon's way. It was too small to faze her, so the hooded woman struck out a bit more.

The next cube was bigger. Big enough to knock Tempest's head to the side when it hit her. The elder dragon roared in response and unleashed another breath of lightning at the hooded woman. But she appeared to be able to fly well enough that she could easily dodge the attack by dashing sideways.

When one of the lightning strikes hitting Noelle's vines shot down dangerously close to her, she was startled. In that exact moment, the dragon prepared one of her whirlwinds and thew it at the hooded woman. By the time she realized it, it was too late. In that brief moment when the attack hit her, you could see bits and pieces of her white clothing being shredded, tearing at her in ways that must have been very painful.

The hooded woman didn't make one sound, but backed off, bent around so no-one below could see the parts of her that the attack had hit, and flew away. Too quickly for the dragon to keep up with. Before too long, she vanished off into the distance, the same way she had appeared.

"We've got to help her!"

"She could land right here if she wanted to. I don't think she wants our help."

Even as Kris and the rest were transfixed watching all this, the worked up villagers rallied around them, calling the guards traitors and other names from further behind. Kris wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but he was split between two conclusions.

Either this was similar to King in the Card Kingdom and the guards were under some magic influence, or they were well aware of what they were doing and just playing word games. He tried probing his way a little further to find out which of the two it was. "So wait, if elder dragons are peaceful creatures that wouldn't hurt anyone, why do you need a tent with a counter magic enchantment to hide under?"

"For protection of course!"

"If not from the dragon, from what?"

"From backwards rabble like you of course." That alone was enough for him. The more you dug into the excuses they made, the more nonsensical they became. Whichever of the two scenarios was at play here, he wasn't going to be able to reason with those guards.

"Betrayers!"

"You've abandoned your people!"

Even the tarot cards were becoming louder and louder with their interjections. "The throne has abandoned us!"

That was when the Emperor startled Kris with his familiar voice, and spoke up to announce his intervention. "THIS throne has not." He shot a glance at all the upwards vines Noelle had created, more and more of which were set ablaze by the increasingly frequent lightning strikes. "If lightning conductors work with this beast, then I may have a means of resolving this."

The earth shook and all around them, in far-apart positions arranged around the fleet, large stone pillars burst out of the ground, with bronze obelisks mounted at their tops. The pillars rose and rose and rose, they didn't seem to end anywhere, and eventually, the obelisks not only reached way higher than Noelle's vines, but they actually got high enough to surround the dragon causing this storm.

Then the obelisks detached themselves from the pillars, formed a ring around Tempest and began circling around her. At first, the obelisks kept their ring near where the upper ends of the pillars were. Just in time for when one wave of Noelle's conductors was running out, they caught more and more of the lightning discharges. The proximity to the storm clouds really went a long way in drawing them.

Some of the electric surges jumped over to the pillars which grounded them. Others wound up jumping from obelisk to obelisk. And as those accumulated, the obelisks began spinning faster, creating a strange lightning spectacle, before they closed in on the nervous elder dragon and all the discharges hit her at once. Drawing a painful shriek from her.

But it didn't kill her. Apparently she was somewhat resistant to electric strikes. She worked through the pain, surged towards one of the obelisks with enough force to bend it when she bumped into it, and broke out of the circle.

"We did it! She's leaving!" Ralsei's cheering was premature. Tempest didn't fly away. She made a sharp turn to the right and began flying a very wide circle around the Emperor's fleet. Now she was unreachable for the fun gang, but she was also moving too fast for the Emperor to repeat his little electromagnetic trick.

And her increased distance did nothing to improve the situation. The Emperor's and Noelle's subsequent waves of conductors may have warded off the storm for now, but it continued unabated. In fact, it started to rain as well. "Wait, that's even worse."

Dasher shouted at the guards again. "This play has gone on for long enough! We can't reach it! I know the Empress has ballistae in her garrison! We really need those harpoons to deal with the dragon now!"

"Harpoons? Are you crazy? This opposition to dragons is why we have our orders. If you were to learn to love dragons, this all would end."

"Really?" One of the monster villagers, a quirky old dog monster with hair loss and several tooth gaps pushed his way forward. "I got it! This is it! We don't have to fear the dragon! We have to embrace the dragon."

The guard further encouraged him. "Yes, that is your path forward."

The old man ran back out of the crowd, onto the fields around them until he was just before the ring the guards made, spread his arms and screamed at the dragon as loudly as he could. "I call to you dragon! I understand now! You mean us no harm! There is no need to be scared."

The moment he had Tempest's attention, she lowered herself closer to the ground. "I'm willing to open up and show you kindness, because I know you will sho-" He couldn't go on any further, as the moment Tempest reached him, she unleashed another lightning breath and burned him up so quickly, the old man's brittle arm fell off before the rest of him hit the ground.

One of the guards at the tent folded up his arms. "Obviously this peasant didn't love dragons ENOUGH. You need offer yourselves up more willingly than that."

Dasher gave up reasoning with the guards as well and joined with Kris and the others. "What can we do now? She's too far away, we need ballistae to stand a chance. But our Emperor's are all in the Empress' garrison."

They were all startled by another voice calling out to them from outside the fleet. It was Susie's voice, but she was shouting with a force that no-one who knew Susie, was used to. "An empire that entrusts its power to weak hands, will descend into permissiveness and treachery, and is soon to crumble!" Upon a hill west of the many carriages, stood someone Kris didn't expect.

It was Veritas. Now with her full centurion apparel back in place. "An empire only remains strong, if it is unbending, unapologetic. It must remain immune to any attempts of its enemies at shaming it into giving up the things that made it strong." She stood besides a wooden ballista in the style of ancient roman ones, and without physically touching it, she was somehow aiming it at the elder dragon's current position.

"Your empire, your four kingdoms - its forces in the hands of this irresponsible 'Empress', is weak. What is an elder dragon, when faced with the might of a true empire?" The ballista wasn't loaded with a bolt, but a harpoon and a metal chain attached to it. How it could fire and later pull it when the ballista itself was made of wood - who knew? But seeing her fire it gave everyone new hope. Unfortunately, the legionnaire was a bit drunk and the shot didn't land anywhere near where the dragon was.

When Veritas realized it as well, the ballista, the harpoon and the chain it was attached to, all dispersed into white clouds and vanished. Only to soon be replaced with five new ones. Veritas was going for the broad brush approach. Whenever her previous wave of ballistae missed their target, she summoned even more the next time around. She positioned them at random, placing most of them somewhere at a point Tempest was currently on the move towards.

And it appeared that all Veritas needed, was some practise. As she kept trying to catch the dragon, she eventually started shooting much more closely. Even though most of the time, she only hit the wings and whenever she did, instead of piercing them, her ballista and the harpoon just vanished the same way her other ballistae did between waves.

Then, finally, one of them actually hit its mark. The hooks buried themselves in Tempest's scales, and it was too strong for her to escape. When it hit her, she flailed about and spat lightning in random directions, but missed the harpoon and chain. Hitting her target once and pulling her closer gave Veritas an opportunity to summon more ballistae and take some more secure shots, all of which hit their target. "Prepare yourselves, lightners! The beast approaches!"

Kris and the others made their way to a different hill from where Veritas was standing. The one all the ballistae were standing around. Tempest eventually did manage to hit them, but she never freed herself for long enough to not get hit by the next harpoon right afterwards. The vanishing and reappearing siege weapons pulled the elder dragon down to the ground. Finally, they all had a clear shot.

Noelle raised vines that pointed right towards the rough vicinity of Tempest's maw. Ralsei had his gun loaded with real bullets and got ready to shoot, Dasher summoned his arrows and nocked his bow, everyone prepared to do whatever they could contribute to taking down a big enemy. And she was big, it took her coming really close for them to realize how large she really was, and they all were intimidated enough to stop for a moment.

Kris couldn't get up close to attack it. He would have just gotten himself squashed under her feet. Besides, Veritas continuously dispelled and remade her ballistae to fire at the dragon from different directions, whenever it zapped and burned the previous ones. So all he could do was throw his sword at her and resummon it again and again.

Fighting the dragon from as close as they were was dangerous. But Tempest's hand-made tornadoes and lightning breath were much deadlier than regular dragonfire. They killed instantly in a single hit. It took Kris several attempts and a lot of healing to move and redirect the party to not get hit by it. If he hadn't found Noelle and Ralsei and started touching the lights again, he would have been at a loss for how to get through this part.

And this part dragged on and on. Every additional second was extremely dangerous and while their attacks did work, they did inflict wounds and the dragon did bleed. But she was just so. Damn. Big. Kris wished their arsenal was a little more complete. He wished they had something to attack her at range with, that was bigger than all the bullets and arrows they had. Something like a...

"Rude...buster!" Yes, like a rude buster. In fact from behind them, a purple wave of energy surged through the air, square over their heads and carved a lengthy wound in the dragon's chest. More reinforcements. And from the looks of it, it was Axe and Headbanger. And he could tell by the ribbon her hair that it was 'the' Axe.

Most of the party stayed moved back to better dodge the slow lightning breaths and Noelle erected a wall of vines to shield them for the moment. But they stayed away from the succubi as well. Only Kris met the dragon girls half-way. "Wait, you can cast rude busters?"

For a moment, 'Axe' froze up and only snapped out of it when Headbanger gave her a painful nudge with her elbow. "Y-yeah! I can do Susie's special attack now! Pretty neat huh?" Headbanger subtly pointed at the wound on Susie's hand that she carved earlier. When she realized it, she went ahead and followed Kris. "Ah right and what's more, I don't bleed anymore."

"How?"

"I'll explain later. So you killing this one?"

"I don't know what else to do. It's either killing this dragon, or killing all those guards so we can do something about that crystal ball."

"Balloon tits it is then."

"Balloon what?" Susie glanced over to Headbanger, who gave her a smile and a thumbs up. She already picked up on Axe's habit of giving people weird or shortened names, no instructions needed. That actually gave her some confidence in her ability to pull this off.

"Nevermind. Let's take her down!"

The others were still a little hesitant when Kris and Susie joined up with them again. "She's with us now."

"All right, let's do this!" The vines were already burning away when Susie took a step back, readied her scythe and threw it. And unlike Kris' comparably weak weapon arm, there was some serious oomph to it when the blade hit Tempest. And after that, every rudebuster she launched was strong enough to stagger the beast and create more windows for the rest to attack it more safely.

Headbanger never bothered to follow the rest into battle. She didn't have anything to use at range anyway, so she just plugged her guitar into a small pair of loudspeakers at the bottom of her wooden cart and began to accompany their battle with music.

Injuring the dragon went on much faster with Susie's help, and when Tempest's chest was covered in wounds, finally, the blood loss or her general condition, saw to her collapsing to the side. The tremors her weight caused had everyone struggling not to fall over. Within seconds, the clouds dispersed and the rain stopped. "Nos vicit!" The legionnaire bellowed from where she stood. "The beast lies defeated." The people watching, monsters and tarot cards alike, cheered at their victory.

"You know I actually thought you wouldn't come."

"Hm?" It took a little getting used to, just getting talked to out of the blue like that, but that was just what Kris was like. If he bothered to talk at all.

Kris pointed at the hole in Susie's jacket. The hole that lacked a wound to go with it. "How did you get better so fast?"

He had her on the spot for a second, but luckily, Headbanger had come close enough by that point to get involved. She leaned against Susie for support and to shake her out of her momentary stupor. "We met someone! And they patched her back up. And made some other changes, too."

Susie was glad to have someone to bounce off like that, even if it being 'herself' made it weird as hell. "Yeah! I don't bleed anymore, I can do rudebusters, I'm just like the real Susie now."

"I'll be the judge of that. But welcome to the party. I'm glad you actually came."

"Not so fast!" Veritas managed to stumble her way to the two of them by now as well and pointed her gladius right at Susie. "Now that the more immediate threat is put to rest, I must demand that you stand down, beast."

Susie was confused for a moment, so she pointed at herself. "Are you talking to me?"

"Who else? What plot have you hatched this time, agent of corruption?"

Kris stepped slightly between them. "There is no plot. She's on our side now."

Now, Noelle and Dasher got involved. "Uhm - about that...are you sure that's a good idea?"

Dasher was a lot more direct about this than Noelle. "Remember that she almost got us all killed! The succubi directing the serpents that brought down the Chariot were under her command! For all she cares, we would all be dead."

Kris said nothing and looked to Ralsei to see what he thought about it. And was met with an uncomfortable smile. "I'm afraid they're right. I don't think being too careless around her is a good idea, Kris."

With her sword always pointed at Susie, her ancient roman lookalike came closer. "It is clear that she plans to take you prisoner again! Why else would she be here?"

A very uncomfortable feeling crept up Susie's back. And one she knew day-in day-out in the light world. She had just joined up with the others and already now, everyone was against her. Everyone except Kris. "She's the one that let me go in the first place."

"She failed to kill your friends the first time round. Perhaps this is part of her plot to put down loose ends!" Susie looked to Headbanger for advice, but she just shrugged. If her standing directly by Susie's side did nothing to change Veritas' assessment, then she had nothing to offer that would.

"She was never much of a fan of Temptress, you know."

Kris' attempts didn't achieve much in lieu of persuading Veritas either. "She can talk all she wants. You are a fool to believe Axe is any more than that depraved harlot's personal attack dog!"

This, this whole situation. Being looked at with fear and anger from all sides. Having to worry every single second about the people around her jumping at her. This was what Susie was trying to escape. Getting away from that even briefly, was why she wanted to get to the dark world so badly. And now that made it, it chased her here. "You really think someone has such a change of heart, just like that?"

She had to say something. She couldn't just let Kris do all the talking. But she was at a loss. All of her body felt uneasy. She felt as if she was right back to being strangled and accused of who-knew-what by her Mom. She tried to say something, but she could only stammer out the same short-hand thoughts she came up with when her mother held her in her grip. "Maybe - maybe I changed. Did you think about that?" This glorified scribble had brought her close to tears, just like that.

Veritas snarled at her. "Serpens mendax! People don't change, just like that! Once a succubus, always a succubus! You are here to serve Temptress and tempt the human and nothing will ever change that."

Banger tried hooking in here. "Technically, she's supposed to serve the Knight, not antler-girl. And I don't think the Knight agrees with some of the stuff antler-girl has been up to."

"Silence, you lazy slob! On the ground, beast!" With her blade still pointed at the helpless dragon, she surged forward so fast, Susie barely had any time to react and wound up stumbling back and falling over. "Come on, human! See reason and cast her out! You can tell that I don't stand alone in questioning her loyalty."

The prince pulled Kris aside, too. "Kris...I appreciate the thought, but I think you're being a little too trusting here."

After looking back at Ralsei, the human very slowly faced forward again. Silently. Cold and quiet, as he often was. A silence uninterrupted by all the others waiting for his response. "No." With another insistent step, he placed himself square between Susie and Veritas. Blocking the path between them right again. "What if she DID change?"

Noelle was about to say something when he interrupted her. "You should know better than anyone. All this stuff you asked about the other day - you know what Susie is like in school. Or used to be like? I don't know. Why would you want to know anything, even be friends with her, if you thought she couldn't change?"

What he said appeared to be on-point enough to get Noelle to break eye-contact and lower her gaze to the ground. "So you already believe Susie can change for the better. And if Susie can change..." He reached down with one hand to help Susie back on her feet. "...maybe Axe can change, too."

Susie realized her breaths heightened and her face was trembling. She wasn't sure why, but everything happening just now got to her in a way that most things in the light world wouldn't. "She's with us now. If this is some trick, we'll figure a way out eventually. But I don't think we have to." She would never have just shied away and fallen down like that another time.

And being stood up for just now - for once in a lifetime - she felt drowsy. Confused. Unable to figure out how to process what she was hearing. It all felt so surreal to her. Like all of this was just a dream. She always had this fear, deep down, especially at home and in school.

Even back on her feet, despite her outdoing most around her in height and strength, she felt vulnerable, like a helpless little girl. At the mercy of people who wanted her gone, dependent on someone to stand in the way when the mob raised its pitchforks. But now, for once, there actually was someone standing in the way.

When slowly, the expressions on everyone else's faces eased up, the legionnaire put her sword away. "The fate of this realm hangs in the balance, 'dragonslayer'. I hope you didn't just squander it."

When the legionnaire retreated, Kris's body relaxed and he took a few steps away, too. Then - in his usual awkward manner, pointed at Noelle and the others with his arm and finger fully stretched out. "Don't touch Axe. I'll be right back." And with that, he marched off in a hasty and stuck-up manner Susie remembered. Back in the Card Kingdom, at weird times and occasions, when she saw little reason to do so, he'd suddenly go back to specific locations, just like that - for no stated reason.

Counter to what he seemed to expect, Susie went after him. Only when she followed him through the unsure crowd did she find some moments to clear her mind. She had a tear in her eye. She quickly wiped it away and looked around to make sure no-one had seen it. What was wrong with her? She had to pull herself together. Who knew, if she was trembling and being all weird and fidgety like this, he might suspect 'Axe' might really be up to something. Headbanger was quick to catch up and walk alongside her. "Hey - you okay?"

"Yeah - sure."

"You look - I dunno. If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone can't hold her liquor. Want another one by the way?"

She offered Susie one of her shots. She thought about turning away for a moment, but when she saw Kris stop, she changed her mind. "What the hell." Downed another one just like that. After that though, the succubus got the sense that Susie wanted to be left alone and stayed back.

This time, the specific location Kris was heading for with no real reason, was just outside the town gate, a little off to the left along the wall. He looked around, and then reached out with his hand to...nothing. He was grasping thin air. Another weird habit she knew from the Card Kingdom.

When he saw her, he watched her come closer. And he said nothing when she was close enough to talk. "Hey..." He said nothing. He was back to the same weird little human she always knew. "...I just wanted to say - thanks. For sticking up for me back there."

His expression wasn't completely neutral. It was - unsure? Upset? Susie always had trouble making sense of what exactly his face was trying to get across. Or whether there was anything being tried at all. "Axe...please, please prove them wrong. I know you can."

For a moment, she almost slipped back into being all wimpy like a few seconds ago, but this time, she caught herself in time to pull herself together before it got that far. "Y-yes! I pro-" She stopped herself because she almost sobbed. Good thing her voice was all weird and he - hopefully - couldn't tell.

She cleared her throat and tried getting herself back into the right mindset. She was big, strong, scary Susie - uh Axe. What did Axe tell her to say again? Big sister Axe. "You can count on me." She tried to smile and relax. Holding Kris in the same way Axe had showed her earlier with her arm wound over his shoulder and pressing down to show her strength and weight. And giving him a noogie - a more soft noogie than those purposefully painful ones she did in school. "Trust me, buddy - always remember from now on: big sister Axe has always got your back."

"I hope you do."

Throughout the years she'd known him from class, Susie had often held Kris in all kinds of painful grips. Usually to get back at him for something he did, or just to force him to give her his lunch. She never thought anything of it. There was no reason to. Holding him now shouldn't have felt any different this time.

But for some reason, it did.


End file.
